The long journey back to life as I used to know it…

hello all,

Today I went to the doctors office to have my shiny blue cast removed and the Vaco Cast that I worked so hard to get put on.  My doctor in every other surgery he has done has kept his patients in various casts for 6 weeks and then on to shoes. That scared me a ton so with the help of this blog and google I helped create my own recovery plan. I was very delicate with my doc as I did not want him to think I was trying to do his job but who knows my body better than me. I recommended this brace and he said he would look into it. To his credit he called his “brace guy” as he called him, he had never heard of it and frankly neither one of them were even familiar with the bledsoe boot or cam walker. Anyway I ramble, the doc cut the cast off, played with my Achilles for two minutes and said everything looked great. He thinks great but my calf looks like my 5 yr olds. It hangs from my leg like a soggy piece of sausage and has the muscle tone of an infant leg.  Sorta worse than I thought it would be since I was flexing my toes, trying to move around in that cast, etc. My doc and the brace guy then started to put me in my new boot, neither one really new what they were doing but when they were done I asked if I could put some weight on it, doc said yes and I walked out with one crutch instead of the two that I came in with. As soon as I got home I took it off and started some ROM excercises and some simple stretching excercises, although there was a little discomfort it felt good to see my foot work again.

I have been inspired so much by people on this blog who are running, playing golf, walking normal at 90 days. That is my goal, in 90 days I want to play golf with my friends. My doc wants to see me back in two weeks at which time he says I can go into shoes, scary thought right now but we will see in two weeks how much progress I make.  I also picked up equipment for my sons baseball team tonight, the one I am coaching, and I can’t seem to figure out how I going to manage that with this new boot on. Oh well it is only tee ball and if I can keep them from picking daisies and hitting each other with the bats I will have succeeded. And if at the end of the season my son still wants to play I will consider it a win.

I have continued my workouts with my upper body and the good leg. Although I can not use free weights like before (since I can’t carry them) I have learned how to use every machine at my gym. Some of them I never really new what they were for, now I know and I like the fact that everyone gives me honors on every piece of equipment. They see the gimp coming and the just leave the machine. I have explained my story to just about every person at the gym and I almost feel a little like a celebrity….they all want to know how I am doing.  To finish my wife has really gone above and beyond the call of duty and I could not imagine going through this alone. I continue to take my “cocktail” as I call of meds each day, zinc, vitamin c, mega man multi-vitamin, and cirrus rx….I am eating pineapple like there is not much left in the world and I drink so much water I almost need to go to the bathroom more than my dog. Thanks for reading and thanks to all of you for your support. I will report back as my progress continues….