Last Wednesday when I went to physical therapy I talked to my therapist about driving. After seeing how well I did with all of my exercises in just my ankle brace he decided that I could start "experimenting" with driving. Basically he wanted me to start with sitting in the driver's seat and practice moving my foot back and forth between the pedals and see how that felt. Then if that felt okay, to start with short drives so as to not tire out my leg since endurance is one of the big issues with which I have to contend.
Thursday morning I drove the girls the half mile to daycare and then back home. Then Ben's mom drove me to work and I got a ride home. Friday I drove a little more, but really eased into it over the weekend. By Monday I was ready to drive to work. It is so nice to be able to drive myself around again and not always be dependent on other people to get places. I think Ben appreciates it, too. We're both getting a little more time alone and getting back into our normal routine, which is good for everyone involved.
Physical therapy is going really well. He's working me hard, which is great because I can tell my ankle is getting stronger. I'm still in my ankle brace all of the time, other than when I sleep or when I'm just sitting on the couch in the evenings after the girls go to bed. I've been doing a little bit of work on a stationery bike at physical therapy, so I have a feeling that my first real workouts post surgery will be biking. That's fine by me- I'll be happy to be getting exercise doing anything. I sure can't wait until I can get back to running, though.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
I am happy to announce...
For the first time in over 7 months I can now walk normally with no pain! Granted, that's with an ankle brace on (a pretty strong one at that), but I'll take it! I'm not going to mention how it feels when I'm just sitting here, though. Why in the world does it feel better when I'm walking on it than it does when I'm sitting here with no weight on it?
Good Appointment, but still no driving :(
I had an appointment with Dr K yesterday morning. It went well. He said things look good and he's impressed with how good my foot looks when I stand up. He has me transitioning from the boot into an ankle brace which is a really nice change. It's so nice to be wearing 2 shoes again and to be able to move my ankle. I'm probably not easing into the brace as much as I should be since I wore it to work this morning and didn't bring my brace, but that's okay. I'm just determined to build up the strength in my ankle. I can handle a little soreness, I just have to watch out for pain because that will land me back in the boot. I go back to Dr. K in three weeks and I WILL be driving to that appointment.
He told me that there's no cut and dry way to tell if I'm ready to drive. It's a matter of my ankle being strong enough and the tendon being strong enough so that it doesn't get injured if I have to slam on the breaks or something. It's also a matter of my reaction time with my foot being fast enough to get from the gas to the break quick enough if I have to stop quick. He said that since I'm at the point where my tendon is probably healed or at least very close to being fully healed that there's a bit of a risk vs reward going on with driving. I have to weigh the risk of something happening with the reward of being able to drive and go from there. He also told me to talk to my physical therapist about it and really my PT would be the one to clear me to drive.
Yesterday afternoon I went to physical therapy. I told my PT about my appointment and he went and read Dr. K's notes about it. He had me up and working in my brace a lot, which was really nice. He said my movement looks really good so really it's mainly about strengthening right now. I tried to convince him (and so did one of the aides) but he wants to see me a couple more times before I start driving so that I can build a little more strength. I hope to be driving next week. I need to build up my driving stamina at least a little before our Thanksgiving trip to Tennessee...
He told me that there's no cut and dry way to tell if I'm ready to drive. It's a matter of my ankle being strong enough and the tendon being strong enough so that it doesn't get injured if I have to slam on the breaks or something. It's also a matter of my reaction time with my foot being fast enough to get from the gas to the break quick enough if I have to stop quick. He said that since I'm at the point where my tendon is probably healed or at least very close to being fully healed that there's a bit of a risk vs reward going on with driving. I have to weigh the risk of something happening with the reward of being able to drive and go from there. He also told me to talk to my physical therapist about it and really my PT would be the one to clear me to drive.
Yesterday afternoon I went to physical therapy. I told my PT about my appointment and he went and read Dr. K's notes about it. He had me up and working in my brace a lot, which was really nice. He said my movement looks really good so really it's mainly about strengthening right now. I tried to convince him (and so did one of the aides) but he wants to see me a couple more times before I start driving so that I can build a little more strength. I hope to be driving next week. I need to build up my driving stamina at least a little before our Thanksgiving trip to Tennessee...
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