Monday, November 9

One step at a time

So far so good. The bones are healing well and I'm cleared to start walking on the left leg with the boot on for protection. I can sleep and work on my range of motion stuff with the boot off. First I'll start with the crutches or a cane, increasing the weight on my left leg as pain dictates. So far the pain isn't an issue and I can do some walking unassisted though longer sessions like tomorrow's Kindergarten zoo trip will be crutch assisted just in case. After pressing them for a while on various details of what I can and can't do and more importantly why, she finally came back in the room one final time and pushed, pulled and prodded my ankle a bit more. I didn't wince once. Then she watched me walk on it. "You might be further along than we thought but give us two more weeks of healing and another set of x-rays." Not exactly what I wanted to hear but fair enough. She did say the boot would probably come off at that point which would be ideal.

The doctor was not in favor of cycling or other activities yet but the fears were mostly out of concern for a shock loading or crash on the still healing bones from what I could pry out of them. That I understand. More talks tomorrow with Jenn, the PT-inlaw, and I'll make a decision on starting to ride the trainer. Obviously crashing isn't a risk and the weight on the ankle is much less than walking unassisted but perhaps there is another medical point of view I'm missing. I don't want to make anything worse but I also don't want to sit around for 2 more weeks for unfounded paranoia. Even some low level enduro paced sessions would really help stem the loss of fitness too much further. Plus I'd be a lot less bored and it seems like it would help with my range of motion. You know you're bored when you're begging to be able to ride the trainer.

In other news I got to stab my wife in the butt with a needle!I'm not going to steal all her pictures but keep an eye out for her blog and Facebook for the details. That was a new one!

4 comments:

Doug said...

Chris,

I think that's great news. Doctors estimates are typically for the average person. A highly conditioned athlete like yourself tends to heal much quicker than your average out of shape patient. But you've probably heard that already.

It was one year ago yesterday I blasted my arm apart. I had to stay home and keep it immobilized for 6 weeks after my surgery. Lots of pain meds. But at six weeks my bone was nearly all healed. I continued to grow bone at a rapid rate for the next two months. The Surgeon was very surprised. And once I started PT, I progressed way faster than the average patient just because I knew how to be disciplined and could take a lot of pain.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, you're going to come back from this much faster than any doctor will tell you you're going to. Trust me, I've been there.

Dave said...

Very glad to see you on the mend. Good energy coming your way..

Carney said...

Glad to hear you're healing up!

On a related note, one footed indoor dry tooling looks rather interesting! :)

mickel said...

Hi, I am happy that I stumbled on to your blog, Its a very nice blog and I am glad that you're doing ok after such a mishap. Take care, Bye.