*Right: 12 week (3 month) surgery anniversary*
*Left: 32 week (8 month) surgery anniversary*
Today is my 3 month and 8 month surgery anniversaries. The most important milestone is that I made it to the 3 month mark for the right. 3 months is the threshold between NWB/PWB/FWB with assistive devices to just FULL WEIGHT BEARING and returning to activity. Next week I have my "3 month" checkup with my doctor. I look forward to telling him all about how much progress I have made since he has last seen me, and of course since I moved away.
General updates:
1) Both feet are tolerating much more standing and walking
2) They are doing well in "normal" shoes (Clark's flats)
3) Still elevating when I sleep and only when they bother me, but significantly less time than before
4) Still icing before going to bed every night
5) My shower chair is also still essential, especially for longer showers (like washing hair, shaving legs, etc.) Shaving is still tough, because doing it standing requires you to stand on one leg for an extended period of time. My feet do much better when they are sharing the weight between them. I use a hybrid standing/sitting shaving system.
6) Let's not talk about stairs. Those are just plain SCARY.
7) They are responding well to increased activity...other than the stairs issue
8) I can feel them getting stronger every day.
AND....
Today, I WAS ABLE TO DO HEEL RAISES!!!! (Story below)
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PT SESSION #16
PT started off as usual with an update to my therapist about how my feet are doing. I was excited to tell him about yesterday's accomplishments of making it through the day without orthotics or tennis shoes, walking down and then up a hill with no pain, returning to the pool, being able to kick off of the wall, and practicing my heel raises in the water.
Then...
Elliptical- 5 mins
Bungee cord walking, 10 x all 4 directions
Heel raises on the leg press, 3 x 15. My therapist said that I was actually going past horizontal today!
Single leg press, 3 x 10. My therapist estimated that he set the machine for 90 lbs. 90 lbs for a single leg to press!!! It was definitely difficult, but I did it!
Step-ups with the foam pad, 2 x 10 with a 5 second hold between each rep.
Step-downs from a low step, 3 x 10 (Simulating the movement of stepping down from a stair). I could step down with my left foot, stressing my right foot calf/foot ROM. When I tried to step down with my right foot, on the second rep, I felt a sharp pain in my left posterior tibial tendon. I kept doing reps thinking it would loosen up. Nope. It just got worse. I told my therapist and he had me try on a lower step. Still painful. He had me slide my left foot forwards until my toes were off the step and then try stepping down with my right again. This was much better, but still uncomfortable. Now I know that my ability to go downstairs is more limited by my left foot than my right.
Calf stretch with the angled stretching block. My left calf was really tight and it was the one limiting the stretch today. I think that the "stairs" exercise aggravated it.
For manual therapy, my therapist had me do a combo e-stim/ultrasound on my left foot today instead of my right as usual.
Strengths: I am improving, getting a lot stronger. I left sweating today for the first time, so I am finally doing some serious work.
Weaknesses: My left foot is struggling, compared to the right. I think that it is now going to return to being the limiting foot since it was the one more injured originally and had the much more extensive surgery. My therapist had me sign up for another solid month of PT 2 times a week, up through mid October! The journey continues...
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HEEL RAISES
When I got home, I was messing around after kicking my tennis shoes off. I said to myself, "You did the heel raises so well in the water yesterday, you did better with the leg press heel raises in therapy today, why can't you do that on the ground?" I tried, yet again to do heel raises, a movement that I haven't been able to do on my left foot for a year, my right for the last 4 months. Today was the day that everything clicked, and those heels came right off the ground!!! It took getting both of my ankles reconstructed, months and months of PT and at-home exercises, and fierce commitment from me to accomplish this goal. All that really matters is that I am here. Being able to do heel raises means that I will be able to do the toe-off motion for running. I still have a lot of work to do before I can think about even power walking or slow jogging again, but today I took a MAJOR step in the right direction. As my former therapist always says, "The finish line just got closer!"
Look at all that daylight under my heels!!!
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Reflection
Words can not describe how happy I am to be getting the function of my feet back. My life as it stands currently is the most normal it has been since I originally injured my left foot in April of 2012. I have been through so much since then and have worked my butt off in and out of therapy to get here. Where I am today proves that staying committed, keeping a positive attitude, dropping expectations, and taking everything one day at a time is really the recipe for success to overcome any obstacle.
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