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...