Broken Ankle at 8 months
I’ve reached a new point of view on this experience. Instead of worrying that pain is going to be tendonitis, and resisting or relenting to pain, I’m thinking of pain as scar tissue that needs to break up and joint that wants to move more and breathing through it. Standing and bending my knee forward to the wall (above my toe) is getting easier because I stopped resisting pain and keep easing into the movement.
About halfway into month 8, Physical Therapist mentioned my ankle feels less tight and more soft and flexible. If I could’ve done a cartwheel, I would’ve done dozens of them. Progress!
One leg heel raises are getting easier. I can now do 10 one leg heel raises and ankle starts to ache around the 6th or 7th of 10. That took 3 months of persistence and working with pain to get to and I did it!
I’ve been doing wall sit heel raises added to help keep strengthening calf muscle and it is getting stronger. It’s hard to see any changes visually so I measure my calf every couple weeks and that helps me see it is making its way back to pre-injury size.
Walking down stairs and walking downhill is easier now. Everything thing about this recovery is keep doing it, keep trying, practice daily, and then it eventually gets easier.
I’m doing three way lateral stepdowns now (since stairs are easier) to help get more dorsiflexion.
This ankle dorsiflexion mobilization exercise feels like it doesn’t do anything and then my ankle feels more flexible after I do it.
I decided to try to fast walk the route that I used to walk&run before injury. The 3ish mile route goes from my house up into the hills above Dolores Park (in above photo) and up and down the hills around the neighborhood. I was able to do about 50% of the route before my ankle started aching. I came home, filled a bucket full of warm water and epsom salts, soaked my ankle, then wrapped ankle in ice, and then felt better.
The next day I went on a hike with friends and walking up and down hills caused some pain near my fibula. It’s probably weakness or tightness, says PT, and she added “the fitter” to the long list of exercises I do for this recovery. For two weeks, while doing golf squats, I had not felt pain on inside of ankle, then yesterday the pain was back. Take some time to ice and rest, says PT. It felt discouraging and I remind myself that this recovery isn’t linear, it’s a journey.
A week later I walked 1.5 miles home, from an appointment, without pain.
