Footloose and fancy free

Well, I have been officially cast-free for a full week now, and am pleased to report my foot goes up, my foot goes down, and it even goes from side to side a little bit. I am walking – slowly (and with approximately the same grace as a sea-lion on land) but steadily for the most part – and am very relieved not to have to depend on crutches any longer.

The bone itself is 90% healed, although the soft tissue around my ankle and foot remains quite swollen. According to my doctor, while bones typically heal in 5-8 weeks, ligaments and muscles can take up to 3 months to recover. With any luck, physiotherapy should speed up the process somewhat.

I began treatment yesterday afternoon, seeing the same therapist I’d said goodbye to in late February after she successfully treated my tendonitis. It was a little embarrassing to be back so soon, to be honest, but everyone at the clinic was quite sympathetic and said they’d been seeing a lot of similar injuries this year as a result of all the freeze-and-thaw cycles we’ve been having. (Ok, I know they’re professionally sympathetic, but it’s still nice to hear I’m not alone in my klutzdom!)

Since this was a brand new injury, I naturally had to fill out a set of brand new forms (ones which just happened to look exactly the same as the ones I’d filled out last time). The last form, though, was an assessment sheet for the injury – one of those “Rate from 0-5 your level of difficulty in doing the following ….”

Now, I didn’t have any issue with most of the questions (e.g., going up and down stairs, performing light housework, standing for 1 hour, walking for 30 min., and so on). But when I got to the items “Running rapidly,” “Making sharp turns while running rapidly,” and “Hopping,” I wasn’t entirely sure what to answer – since I hadn’t been stupid enough to attempt to do any of those things in the first place! I mean, I suppose I could run, jump and make sharp turns if I was, say, being chased by a rogue elephant or one of those people who want you to donate to Greenpeace. Otherwise … I think not.

On the bright side, my therapist says she thinks I should see significant improvement in mobility and comfort over the next couple of weeks as the swelling in the ankle goes down. To achieve this laudable goal, MY job is to: (1) keep my leg raised as much as possible; (2) put ice on the ankle every hour or two when practical – or, alternatively, use contrasting baths of warm & cold water; and (3) do a series of exercises several times a day, among which is my favourite – the classic “drawing the alphabet with your foot!” (A … B … C … Draw with me now. C’mon, you know you want to!)

HER job is to stick a half-dozen large (2”) suction cups on my ankle and foot, turn on a machine the size of a barbeque – that does NOT go “ping” even! – and leave for 15 minutes. The suction cups not only suck – literally – on the affected limb (they’re designed to create a vacuum), but send electric currents through the affected area. In other words, yup – I’m undergoing shock treatment! (There’s a few of you out there who may not be entirely surprised at this occurrence.)

Still, despite looking like my leg has been attacked by a giant squid, it’s not really so bad. And my therapist says she should have me up and running again within a few weeks. So, beware all you rogue elephants and Greenpeace activists. Ink is on the march! Almost!