On the Road Again

Last week I had my podiatrist appointment.  Now, I had no idea as to what he was expecting of me, as far as my healing goes.  Just what am I supposed to be able to do, or not to do yet.  When I asked him 6 weeks ago, I just got my cast off and was presented with a walking boot and heavily needed my crutches.  I had just fallen three different times a few days before my cast removal appointment.  You could tell it had done damage, there was fresh blood on my bandages, and there hadn't been any blood for weeks, each time the old cast was removed, clean bandages were seen, except this time. 

With walking boot on, I gingerly stepped.  I have to mention here, a strange thing has acured while using crutches, I've grown 2 inches.  I figure at least one inch was from my spine opening up.  My back has been feeling better, not great, but better.  But some of my jeans have become too short, as I tried them on now that I could enlarge my wardrobe, with the removal of my cast.  I have been 5'3" since I was 12 years old.  I remember thinking "Wow!  I'm going to be tall, I'm already taller than my mom, and I'm still growing!"  sadly, that's the same thoughts my mom had when she was 12 years old, and she reached the grand height of 5'1".  And neither of us grew any more.  Well, I didn't until recently.

One thing that the walking boot did was really stabalize my ankle, which put a lot of strain on my knee, which was already weak from when I fell down a flight of stairs on my knee. (Did I or did I not say that I was a certifiable clutz on my profile, lol.)  So, my knee when out of place, just enough to hurt when I took a step.  So, after two weeks, I ditched the walking boot and started using my lace up ankle stabalizer with the compression sock.  I used that around the house, but whenever I went out, I had my walking boot.  Now, I was still relying heavily on my crutches, which now I rather liked because I found I had "grown" to 5'5".

Two weeks before my podiatrist appointment, I found that I could walk without crutches, but only if I wore shoes.  I did find that regular shoes did hurt my foot I had surgery on.  I tried out the new roller bottom shoes, but they only had the immitation Sketchers, by Aspire, at the Sports Authority I was at.  Having never tried out Sketchers' shoes, these were terrific.  My arch in my right foot, however, hurt me like crazy.  The more I walked the more I realized that it hurt, and must have been hurting all this time, but with my left foot in so much pain, I hadn't really noticed.  I would walk from one end of the house to the other and I'd end up limping to keep weight off of my RIGHT foot. 

At first, my steps were tiny, little iddy biddy, teen tiny steps.  I began to use my scooter in the house just to get around a little quicker, and it helped to stretch my tendons while keeping most of my weight off of my left foot.  After a few days of using the scooter, I could take bigger steps.  I started taking walks up the street.  At first I could barely walk 200 meters.  I'd come back exhausted, and have to take a nap.  But after a couple of days, I could go farther.  Now, I had taken these walks WITH my crutches, and people would stop and ask me if I was okay, if I needed any help.  I'd laugh and tell them that I was just out of a walk.

It never occured to me until later that they might have thought that I was a little crazy, like off my meds, that I had lost my way and needed help finding my home, where I had escaped from, lol.  I really must have looked a sight.  My youngest son had said that I did look like I was crazy.  I would just laugh at him, but now thinking about it, I probably did look a bit odd.  After a few days of that, I was able to walk a little over 1/2 a mile, and people who used to stop and ask me if I needed help, now just smiled and waved at me.

Finally, a week before I had my podiatrist appointment, I began to walk, speed walk, as per my eldest daughter's advice.  I told her how I wanted to run, but that if I try, I seem to end up slower than if I walked.  She told me to try to speed walk, that I ought to go faster, and use less energy.  Each day, I either went on the treadmill or out in the real world.  I was able to get up to 2 miles, 20 minutes per mile.  I can only stand immobile on my two feet for no more than 2 minutes, but if moving, I can be on my feet no longer than 40 minutes.  Don't know why it's like that, but hey, at least I was able to walk 2 miles.

So, I told all of this to the podiatrist, and he said that I was doing fantastically.  He'd like to see me riding my bike or scooter more.  I told him that my bike tires were flat, or I'd have been riding it.  My husband SAID he'd fix my tires.  I'm still waiting.

I began working out with Gilad on the fitTV channel.  I miss working out with him.  I used to do that 5 days a week and I ran 5 days a week as well.  My podiatrist said that I didn't need physical therapy, because I was an athlete.  I smile everything I remember him telling me this back after I just had my surgery.  It was even on my records in the hospital.  I was listed as "Athlete, runner."  I was asked about my running experiances by the nurses.  I was embarrassed.  But, I guess that I am an athlete.  I might be a little out of shape at the moment, I did just have surgery 2 months ago.  I came off a year of pain in my left foot from when I twisted my ankle.  But, I had been running with a bone chip floating around in my ankle, a heel spur, plantaar fasciitis, a painful bunion from when I broke my great toe 20 years ago, and of course my ankle instability. 

I want soo much to go out running.  Granted, I hadn't been able to run quickly.  I had been able to reach 1 mile in 5 minutes for a short time.  I was so happy when I did.  I felt like I was flying I ran so fast.  I even beat my eldest son's time by 21 seconds.  It was great, because just two years earlier I couldn't even run one mile without stopping and walking, our of breath.  But then I fell, slipped on water in the kitchen and broke my right wrist.  I have RSD in my wrist, and the pain was excruciating.  I had to stop running for several months, and have never been able to get faster than 11 minutes per mile, oooo, oooo, except for when I ran the U.S. 10K Classic last year, my first mile was 7 minutes!  I beat my eldest son by one whole minute.  I kept thinking that I had to reach a certain spot by the time a certain song began playing, but I guess I passed it, and thought that I hadn't come to it yet, so I pushed myself harder and harder, and began passing men, left right and center, they'd give up trying to pass me and off I'd go.  I thought I was behind my time, and began to feel defeated and began to slow down, but looking at my Nike+/iPod I found that I actually had been running FASTER than I thought.  My second mile was in 8 minutes, then I thought I was really behind and began to slow down a whole lot more.  I want to run more miles in that 10K Classic at 7 minutes a mile.  I want to run the first two and the last two at that time. 

Post Script:  I lost an inch since I no longer am using the crutches. Lol.