I am daily feeling gains in strength in my injured leg, both in terms of balancing in my boot and walking with more strength. The PT is getting more adventurous as I improve as well.
One aspect of that is scar tissue remobilization. I am just at the beginning of that process but for now it involves gentle massage of the incision site. Some spots feel good to have this treatment, but a couple of areas, especially near the top of the incision are less enjoyable. I have heard this gets more intense and less comfortable sometime in the future.
In general, I am progressing quickly and should be starting to do some work outside my boot in the next weeks. I sneaked standing on my injured leg without the boot a couple of times and found it to be strong and comfortable. Not trying to roll forward on it yet but I think that is coming soon. My therapist described the next weeks as a series of levels to reach and then I get to move to the next level. Everyone's timeline is different at this point, but once you can do something, then you can try the next. For example, I have been one-legged biking with a bike trainer I borrowed from a friend the last couple of days. Now that I can balance on my injured leg in the boot I can add the second pedal. I will still be biking in the boot, but can have a more natural biking experience. Once this gets comfortable, I think elliptical training will be next but will wait until later this week to find out about that.
I have tried two different massages in the last two weeks. Somehow our insurance is more in favor of massage than acupuncture so I wanted to see what benefits I could get from massage on top of my other treatments. Last week, I got more of a relaxing massage except for some deep tissue work on my shoulders. It probably was good because it helped me break some defenses down after the surgery but really wasn't terribly therapeutic in any way. This weekend, I went to see Katie Cook Massage and got an entirely different sort of treatment. Her thoughtfulness and methods were completely different from the previous weekend. She seemed to work on fixing function of parts of my body and my posture, and doing this by manipulating soft tissue. I can't say it was enjoyable (it actually was near my upper pain threshold frequently) but I can already feel some changes. My neck and shoulders are moving better. She tried to fix the alignment in my hips that has been messed up by walking in the boot - the difference in heights is somewhat unavoidable. This morning, I noticed that I was walking on my tip-toes on my right foot. Amazingly, my hips wanted to stay at the same height instead of twist to accommodate the differences. I'm sure I will reverse this with more walking in the boot, but it shows what she can do for me once I am out of the boot. It was such an interesting experience, I think I bored Teresa with stories from my treatment by telling so many but I was fascinated by what she did. There are stops that she pressed on that I didn't know could be sore. I think both Teresa and I will be using her services to keep us running smoothly as we escalate our exercise intensities into the future. I would recommend her even if she wasn't our neighbor and friend!
As I mentioned before, Teresa has been starting to run and enjoying it. Once I am free to go into the outdoors again, she will be running loops to get her cardio with me along. I don't mind but we are both preparing mentally for this role reversal. I think she is quite excited about leaving me in her dust...
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