My regular therapist is on vacation for the rest of the week, so I worked with another therapist today. I know him pretty well from being treated at the clinic for so long, so it wasn't an entirely foreign experience to work with him today. I told him the whole story of my feet and how they came to be in this situation while he was working on my ROM. I also told him that the feeling of my left foot in my lace-up brace is so eerie because mentally it feels exactly how I remember that my pre-injured foot used to feel. I really do feel like I could run with the left with this brace on. He cautioned me not to wear it too much, because then my foot will weaken to the point that it will rely on the brace. I am primarily wearing it at this stage to preserve my left foot while it still has to do the majority of the weight bearing. I will stop wearing it as soon as my right foot starts tolerating more weight. He taught me a new exercise, "arch crunches." That is where you try to raise the arch of your foot off the ground by crunching your foot together, while not relying on your toes. It should strengthen the muscles of my arch.
After the seated stuff, he had me put my boot and shoe back on and do some exercises with the equipment on their fitness floor. I can tolerate limited FWB in the boot, so I didn't need to use any assistive devices around the clinic. I started with 15 mins on the hill program on the bike. This was much harder than anything I had done before. I then did leg press, single leg press with each leg, calf raises with the leg press machine, and leg extension. This was really my first time doing any weighted strengthening exercises, so by the end of the appointment I was worn out. We did double GameReady as usual to finish.
When I got home, I literally passed out while sitting up on my couch (with my legs elevated, of course). This session in combination with the residual exhaustion from my defense yesterday took all of my energy.
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Reflection
Another day closer to my goal...
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