Swimming in the Styx

Seven weeks post-op., and my first PT visit.  I’m not exactly apprehensive, nor anxious–but I’m sort of pacing in anticipation.  I’m hoping for a next step (as it were). Am I doing OK?  Can I just proceed?   I’ve been practicing walking barefoot on both feet.  I’ve even tried to balance on my bad leg–since I read here that PTs might ask you to do that.

So, I arrive.  Matt the PT takes a lot of measurements–of course he does, I hadn’t even thought of that.  I appreciated seeing how precisely my foot didn’t work.  The good news was that I could flex up and down far more than I thought I really could.  What was really cool was that he asked me to go to the wall and do a double toe raise.  I thought “I can’t do that!”  But then I just reached down into myself (like in the good old Tae Kwon Do days), and tried it.  Yes I Could!  I raised up on both feet.   Yes, the left one hurt a little, and I was clearly favoring it–but I went up.   I really hadn’t believed I could do that, but because the PT expected that I could, I did.

I learned that while I could flex up and down a lot, and I could flex out, I could hardly flex in.  Again, a surprise.  It was quite remarkable–my right foot would flex way over, my left foot hardly at all. So Matt watches me walk up and down the hall.  ”Oh, yes; I can see just what’s going on.”  We practice a bunch of exercises, which he prints out.  He’s encouraging–says I’m healing well, and after a week or so of exercise, I should do a lot better.

And I feel different.  As noted, I’ve been practicing walking.  It’s not easy.  But–it feels different from two weeks ago.  Then, I felt fragile–I was worried about turning my ankle and re-injuring myself. I wore the boot a lot–not only because I was still supposed to.  Now, I feel strong.  Oh, not actually strong–but I feel that the tendon is healing.  It’s not about being afraid of breaking it again, it’s about making it supple, and making my calf strong, and being loose.

I walk in shoes indoors, per the doc’s instructions.  I’ve been thru the exercises–they don’t hurt, exactly, but I can tell that I’m stretching.  Actually, it’s more work and exercise than I’ve been doing for the past two months, and it makes me tired.   Standing makes me tired. (My cane broke, but I’ve bought a new one–it makes me feel better.)   But mostly I feel that I have passed thru one stage, the I’m-not-well-yet stage, and moved to the I’m-a-whole-but-not-fully-functional-person stage.   I still like to have my heavy cane if I go outside–and my doc suggests I still wear the boot for icy or uneven ground.  And I’d like that.  And I still like to have my indoor cane if I’m moving around inside for more than a few feet.  But I feel I’m on the way up.

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