Oct 19, 2022
Broken Ankle Week 20
Last week’s goal was to take the subway to a lunch meeting and I did it! It was more difficult to walk down the stairs to the subway than walk up. And usually there are escalators going up. I even strode through the restaurant without using cane.
I noticed that if I don’t do ankle/leg stretching and strengthening for a day then it feels tight and uncomfortable. I need to do a bare minimum of stretching, range of motion, strengthening every day to feel good (sort of obvious but I had a cold and I didn’t do anything one day).
W A L K I N G
When the surgeon said, “you’ll be walking by 12 weeks” I now know that her definition of walking is different than mine. Technically I can walk but the walking I do now is ~20% of what I was doing pre-injury (when I walked and jogged up and down hills and stairs in my neighborhood).
I take a cane with me when I’m outdoors and I don’t use it if the sidewalk is flat. I can easily walk on flat ground. I need the cane for up and down hills while I’m working on better dorsiflexion. Going up a hill, climbing up stairs, is much easier than going down a hill, going down stairs.
I’ve been walking more around neighborhoods and one day I really overdid it. I probably walked 2 miles, with hills and all the obstacles that San Francisco sidewalks provide. When I was a couple blocks from home I could feel my ankle protesting and not wanting to move anymore. It doesn’t hurt. It feels like tired muscles that won’t move. I understand because they were all locked up in splints and cast and boot for so many weeks and it takes a while to get all the movement and strength back.
It isn’t that long, in perspective of my whole life, but this recovery has felt like forever.
Since I put the cold therapy machine away, I’m icing my ankle once/day after it’s more active since I noticed it’s still a little swollen here and there and socks feel tight.
This week’s goal: Keep walking hills because it seems to be getting a little bit easier each time.
