PWB and happy as a clam (relatively speaking!)
My husband had his first physical therapy appointment today. It went really well — the therapist spent about an hour checking his range of motion, checking his leg and hip strength, showing him various exercises to begin doing at home, and best of all — how to walk using only one crutch. Yayyy! He focused on how to use the crutch properly (the crutch moves with the injured leg), and how to avoid thrusting his hip out to the side and tilting oddly to navigate the boot.
Things went really well and the therapist said “ok, now try walking with no crutches.” I could see my husband’s face blanch a bit, but, down went the crutch and he walked across the room with relative ease. The therapist said to let pain be his guide; elevate and ice when pain or swelling occurs.
He showed me how to massage along the sides of the incision (very small motions of moving the skin back and forth in a vertical motion); plus rubbing his lower leg to get rid of some of the edema (I think that’s the right word). He said to use an upward motion, starting at the top of the calf and working my way down to his ankle.
He’s a tired pup tonight, but, did walk around the house a bit without crutches or only one crutch. He said it felt SOOOO good to have a free hand.
This is good for his morale which I could see had dropped a bit in the last week or so.