When I first saw the surgeon, he was happy for me because I hurt my left foot and could drive sooner than if it was my right foot. Unfortunately, we have a manual transmission so I still haven't driven since June 5th. Usually, we bike or walk around town and it has been wearing on me (and Teresa) that we have been driving everywhere. Friday, I got permission from the PT to use my commuter bike while I am wearing my boot.
So I pulled my bike out of the bike trainer stand the second I came home and used it to ride to campus. My commute is almost exactly a mile with a small climb at the edge of campus. I took off not expecting too much even though I had been riding for 10 minutes straight in the bike trainer, which is about how long it usually takes to ride to my office. I discovered that my boot makes it a little cumbersome when starting up and it can get caught on my fender when I turn right, but the biking is pretty natural. I took it a little slower than normal and had more traffic than normal to deal with, but found the ride easy and climb at the end pretty manageable.
The north end of campus at Montana State is a mess with construction. At the corner of 11th and College, we are getting a roundabout. That should be interesting when students come back to campus in the fall. 8th street is also torn up with new water lines being installed. So traffic is getting pushed into 9th and 10th streets from both sides and those are the streets I use to commute to campus. Surprisingly, riding with a boot gets you no sympathy from drivers that have been diverted by construction. At one intersection, I tied with the car coming the opposite direction at a stop sign. I came to a momentary stop and since her turn signal was not on and she saw me, I proceeded forward. She started to turn and gave me a dirty look! Even without a boot, I would have been mad about this. With a boot, wouldn't you be a little more patient with someone on a bike (even though I didn't need it)? I get so tired of people with cell phones stuck to their ears driving around and nearly hitting me, especially when I am on a bike and behaving legally - following the traffic laws.
Next week looks to be much easier for both of us since Teresa no longer needs to take me everywhere. We can return to our old schedule and routines of biking to campus and one of us biking home to let Buster out during lunch. My appointments next week will no longer require complicated logistics to get me there and back home. And I start to regain some of my fitness as part of my daily routine.
I had a replacement physical therapist last week and she was really impressed with my recovery at this point. I am getting close to walking without my boot. I am still nervous about that as I feel like I am still pretty weak, but at some point I have to get back to full weight bearing without protection. One of my PT upgrades to get me back to walking has been balancing on one foot with my eyes closed. Try this sometime. Even with full functioning legs, it is challenging to hold for 30 second to a minute. I do this sort of exercise in the winter to improve my balance and glide on skate skis, but had always kept my eyes open. This is definitely a level higher.
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