Week 8 - Boot gets booted
Uncategorized August 26th, 2011Aug 26
Woohoo! I was officially green-lighted this morning for two shoes with wedges!
It was a quick appointment - the doctor looked at my scar, flexed my foot, squeezed my calf, felt the tendon, and compared it to the good leg. I asked him about the sensitivity along the outside of my foot next to the tendon, and he said it was due to the nerve in that area that runs all the way to the foot. The nerve takes a while to recover from surgery, but as long as I have feeling and no odd pains, it should be fine. He did say “if you were being treated the old school way, you’d still be in a cast.”
I’m going to miss the boot a little. The last four weeks just flew by. It’s amazing how the little things, like being able to grab a drink from the fridge, makes recovery more bearable. But the boot liner is beginning to stink. Covering it up with Febreeze doesn’t help - you end up with a weird scent combination of freshness and foot sweat.
August 27th, 2011 at 7:59 am
Congrats!I cant wait to know that feeling. I am also at 8 weeks and had my 4th follow-up yesterday. I am not healing as quickly as you, and the doc said to stay in the boot. Wont see him again for another 4 weeks, and perscribed another 12 PT sessions. The funny thing is that I was actually happy about that. I really enjoy therapy (particularly the massages they give me at the end of my session). How long did it take you to get to heel raises? Im having quite a bit of trouble with that. I think mostly Im just scared.Again, Congrats and happy healing. Remember not to get too carried away and be careful. We still have a ways to go before we’re back to normal.
September 1st, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Thanks! I haven’t really done any standing heel raises yet. I’ve been doing seated ones for about two weeks, with a little bit of body english so there’s weight on the bad leg. Mostly, I’ve been concentrating on walking correctly and lengthening my stride.
October 5th, 2011 at 11:16 am
I’ve been working on heel raises… in the pool. Buoyancy means that you can go through the motion with very little weight on your foot. But, you can engage all of the right muscles, work on coordination, and practice doing the actual motion. If something feels wrong, you can just lift your leg up and float.
As strength and confidence improve, you can move to shallower and shallower water, very gradually increasing the weight on the leg. I’m just getting started, and am still working at shoulder depth - minimal weight on my foot… but I can do ‘em. The bottom of most pools have a bit of slope to them too, so depending on if you’re ready for more or less range of motion, you can face “uphill” or “downhill” to adjust that too.
Might be worth asking your PT guy about-
October 10th, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Thanks for the suggestion, ryanb. It’s getting there… slowly, but surely.