Sunday, September 30, 2012

Physical Therapy

Wednesday I went to PT for the first time for my ankle.  It took about 2 hours total.  They asked what I had done, much to the chagrin of the woman next to me who is doing Tough Mudder in a month.

They measured how many degrees I could move my foot in all different directions. They measured the circumference of my calves.  There was a 2 INCH difference between my right and left calf.  I'm pretty sure my right one was gotten bigger since I have been walking on it some. I wish I had measured the difference right when the cast came off to see what the difference was.

The lady at PT was very nice.  She had me do several exercises and stretches. Only one of them was uncomfortable.  I had to have my weight on my left foot, put the heel of my right foot down and walk through it taking a step with my left.  When my weight gets to the front of my foot on the balls and toes is when it feels weird.

I go back three times this week, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. She said she was going to put me some of the machines this week. I saw an elliptical and exercise bike so I'm thinking it will be one or both of those.

She sent me some exercises to do at home and I feel horrible because I really havent' had time to do them as much as she said.  But I did walk a lot on Friday and Saturday so I'm hoping that will be close enough!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Ankle Surgery #2

Tuesday morning at the bright and early time of 6:15AM I had to be at the surgery center for my second ankle surgery. This one was to remove two long screws, test the ligaments between the bones, and put in two shorter screws.

Before the surgery my doctor asked me if I wanted to keep the screws they removed. I said yeah, my dad would want them.




I put fingernail clippers in the picture so you can get an idea of the length of the screws that were in there! I can't believe how long they were!

Everything went great! The ligaments had repaired themselves and were strong enough that the screws could be exchanged.

I was able to walk to the car afterwards using my aircast. My wedding march is back but I didn't need the crutches!


I started physical therapy yesterday. I'll post more on that later.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Ankle Surgery #2

Tuesday morning at the bright and early time of 6:15AM I had to be at the surgery center for my second ankle surgery. This one was to remove two long screws, test the ligaments between the bones, and put in two shorter screws.

Before the surgery my doctor asked me if I wanted to keep the screws they removed. I said yeah, my dad would want them.




I put fingernail clippers in the picture so you can get an idea of the length of the screws that were in there! I can't believe how long they were!

Everything went great! The ligaments had repaired themselves and were strong enough that the screws could be exchanged.

I was able to walk to the car afterwards using my aircast. My wedding march is back but I didn't need the crutches!


I started physical therapy yesterday. I'll post more on that later.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Shoes!!!

Who thought someone would be so happy about putting on a pair of shoes? But this girl sure is!!  It's been three months with no right shoe!




I went to the doctor on Wednesday and he said I could stop wearing my boot and air an aircast instead that will fit in my shoe!  I will wear it for the next week.  I do have some trouble still walking.  My achilles tendon is very tight and takes a few steps to stretch out and even then it doesnt stretch very far so my steps are very short and still pretty wobbily. 

I have surgery on Tuesday to replace the two screws that go through both my tibia and fibula with two shorter screws that will only go through the fibula.  They will also look to see if the ligaments between the bones have healed. If they have then they will do the surgery as scheduled.  If not they will leave the long screws in and I will have to wait longer before exchanging them.  The doctor said that he thinks they have healed correctly otherwise I would have had trouble the past week or so where I have been putting full weight on my foot. 

After the surgery, assuming it goes as planned, he said I could start doing non impact activity such as eliptical, walking, swimming, exercise bike, etc.  After I can do that with no pain, I can start easing into jogging on the treadmill since it is more forgiving than pavement.  It's going to be a long road back to where I was but I'm glad I can finally start back soon! 

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

No more crutches!

Today was the first day in three months that I was able to walk without the aid of crutches or a wheelchair!  The past 3 weeks I have been gradually adding weight back but still needed the crutches for balance and to keep the rest of the weight off my ankle.  I go back for another surgery in two weeks but the doctor says I can go back to work the next day and can put full weight on it afterwards, no waiting.  They have to replace two of the long screws that go through both bones with two shorter screws that will only go through one of the bones. They will also test the ligaments in between the two bones to make sure they have healed correctly.  If they haven't, then I will keep the long screws and we will have to try again with the surgery at a later date.

As of now I am still in the boot and do have difficulty walking without it.  The part of my ankle that was broken doesn't hurt. Instead it's the bottom and top part of my foot that aches.  My calf has also been aching today some too.  The muscle is having to build back up from where there was so much atrophy.  I will still use a wheelchair on Saturday when we go to the UK football game.  There is just too many people and too much walking for me.  Plus having my handicap parking permit allows us to park super close to the stadium.

I do hope to build up my walking after my surgery and have my sights set on a 5K at the end of October. It is to benefit Alzheimers and I think my dad is going to walk it with me.  He is going to be my new walking buddy! 

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Strep!

Monday before I went in to work my throat was hurting a little. Nothing major. I took some ibuprofen and that took care of it.  After work I got home, sat down to take my boot off and could NOT get back up.  I could only just lay there in the fetal position and shake because I was so cold.  I couldnt get up to turn off the lights I had left on. 

Jeremy woke up about 3AM asking why the lights were still on.  I told him I was sick and couldnt' get up to turn them off.  He got the thermometer for me and I had a fever of 99.6.  By 6AM it was 100.2 and by 9AM it was 101.8.  I made an appointment for the doctor. 

The nurse did a strep test and it came back positive! The doctor looked at me and said he was glad they did the test bc just by looking he would have said I didn't have strep.  He prescribed some penicillin for me and sent me on my way. .  I have not had strep in a very long time, since I was in elementary school.  If you have not had strep as an adult you are lucky! Everyone I talked to said strep is the WORST as an adult and boy they weren't joking!!  My fever got up to as high as 104.0. I took some more ibuprofen to keep it down.  Finally it broke on Wednesday around lunch. 

I have never felt that bad and that's pretty bad coming from the girl with the broken ankle!!  I can put full weight on my ankle on Wednesday.  I'm looking forward to it but am also a little nervous in case it doesn't hold up like it's supposed to.  I have my surgery two weeks from Tuesday and after that should be out of the boot for good if everything goes as planned! Yay!

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Sushi Time

A week or two ago I asked one of our former student workers to teach me how to make sushi. Sophie was glad to help!

Tonight we were able to find the time to make some sushi. Sophie was a great teacher. She told me how to cut all the veggies and crab, how to spread the rice, and roll it all into a roll.

We had several ingredients:
Carrots


Cucumbers


Crab


Rice


Avacado


My first roll


My second roll turned out much better


We made 6 rolls total which made two full plates of sushi!






It was delicious! Thanks so much Sophie for teaching me!

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