My leg doesn’t work right.

Man, just as I was feeling good about keeping myself protected in the first 4 weeks…I go and fall on my injured foot (in the boot, thank goodness) last night.

It was the simplest, thing, too - just crutching in to the bathroom and my right crutch slipped out from under me on the tile floor. Before I could even think about what happened my right leg was out and catching the brunt of the near-fall. It hurt, but it was more of a burning sensation up and down the back of my heel and calf. I did my best to quickly prop myself up with the other crutch and stumble around a bit. I think I pressed the bad leg down twice reflexively. My leg flexed in the boot a bit - there’s a little give in the upper part of the liner - but I can’t imagine it moved very far.

It’s hard to separate the physical feeling from the initial fear. And there was a lot of fear. The pain and burning stopped as soon as I got weight off of my leg. In the end it felt more like a stretch than anything worse - no tearing or popping sensation. There’s no swelling and the incision looks fine. Basically, everything looks the same this morning as it did before the stumble. I have the same basic ROM but haven’t pushed that. I just strapped the boot on tight and will now keep my fingers crossed.

My guess is that my calf flexed/tensed for the first time in 5 weeks and most of what I felt was tightness related to that. I did have a few little twinges in the upper calf, like a light calf strain, but those went away within an hour or so.

Well, I made it 26 days before a fall. Here’s hoping that’s the last one! I’m not quite sure whether I’ll check in with my doctor this week. I have an appointment next week…without any other signs/symptoms I’m inclined to wait for the scheduled visit unless I start noticing swelling, bruising, etc.