mulberryshoots

Actually, I think that confidence and attitude is just about everything to how we go about our day. I went to my first rehab physical therapy appointment tonight. Up to now, I’ve been hobbling around, still using a wheelchair every so often, going up and down stairs gingerly using a crutch. My ankle feels like a solid block of concrete, not blood, bones and flesh. The PT examined my foot and leg, asked me to do some standing exercises and told me that I would see improvement in 4 weeks and real improvement in 12 weeks. . . in a year’s time, she said, I’ll never know I had the injury.

Up to now, I’ve worried in the back of my mind that my ankle would never loosen up all the way and that I might walk with a limp. Not so, it turns out. My mood brightened considerably after the visit. She even said I could try how it feels to drive a car and test myself in a large empty parking lot. So now, a little more confidence has entered my consciousness. When we returned, I came up the stairs using a crutch, carrying a couple of LL Bean packages upstairs too.

Tomorrow, I plan to carry a bunch of G.’s shirts down to the basement laundry room to bleach. It almost feels like someone has waved a magic wand and has tacitly give me permission to get well. TRULY get well. Yeah, sure–the surgeon said I could use 100% weight on my foot as of last week. But I wasn’t confident then. I kept remembering what he had told me during the first visit after surgery that he hoped the repair would work; and that he had avoided making two incisions, letting some of the broken bone heal by itself without more plates being inserted. The PT said that the healing also has to do with whether the screws holding the plates go through my bones or not. We’ll take another look at my X-rays to see what’s going on in there.

Meanwhile, I now have more confidence to use my foot more. And when it’s tired, I’ll continue to rest the foot higher than my heart on the couch at night. Time heals all, they say. And I’m thankful to be this far along.