Day 139: Balance

I'm slowly getting a feel for how much I'm able to do without overdoing it. Last night I stayed home from seeing Sabryna cheer 

(GUTTED me! I had to miss CHEER!) because I knew the walk through a football stadium would be way too much. #tears

In general,  I can walk all around my house.... I can do most of my regular activities.....  But stores,  festivals, stadiums... too much for now. 

My doctor KEEPS reminding me that even professional athletes going to therapy 3x a day need 9 to 12 months to fully recover from a full rupture of the Achilles tendon. Bless his heart! He just still doesn't know me well enough to know that doesn't help! I wanna be wholly healed NOW! #sigh 

So right now I'm focusing on a butt ton of Pilates, balance exercises, and stretching. I'm not even allowing myself to THINK about cardio for the foreseeable future.  I am only going to travel through this rehab ONCE. Lord willing (and Jami's stubbornness succeeding) I'll NEVER do this again!

Day 137: The devil's ball

Have you heard of a BOSU ball? Or as I like to call it, the devil's ball?

I've seen it lurking over there in the corner of the PT room... I just always refused to accept the fact that it would one day be a part of my life. No longer.

On day 137, I was introduced to Satan's weapon of evil. It wasn't as awful as I thought it would be,  but it wasn't fun either.

It's basically half a stability ball... platform on one side,  stability ball on the other. My goal was simply to step up and down on the stability ball side. 

I was terrified of what would happen when my still recovering new tendon encountered such instability,  but I guess that was the point. In order to grow.... my muscles,  tendon, stabilizers.... need to encounter instability and react properly to it.

It wasn't a HARD exercise.  It was just terrifying. My body quickly got the hang of it, but my mind kept screaming,  "BACK AWAY FROM THAT DEFORMED BALL!" all the way through to the final rep... it was just as scary on the final rep as it was on the first one. But I made it through, and I'm done with that terrible torture. At least for the next 4 days... sigh.

Day 135: Stick Shift , Baby!

So today was another momentous day in my recovery. It started with thinking I was LITERALLY going to die and ended with a stroll past a nice sized milestone. But let me get back to the beginning.

I had a dental appointment today. Because John had the minivan,  Noah drove me in the Honda. Let's just say that Noah's driving style (Too Fast Too Furious) doesn't mesh well with my passengering style (TERRIFIED! IMMA DIE! SAVE ME JESUS!) The dental assistant told me that if my blood pressure were just a lil bit higher they wouldn't have been able to do my cleaning. #truestory

After my appointment as I walked toward my impending death,  I remembered that Frank (my physical therapist) had said I should be able to drive stick by now. My fear drove me to LEAP to save my life, and guess what???? I can operate a clutch with my bad foot!  WAHOO!

Day 128: Back on two feet

Three days in the boot did my Achilles well! I went back to a shoe this morning, and it hardly hurt at all!  The swelling is much better too.

So I saw the amazing Dr. Brian Fischer this afternoon.  He took x-rays which looked great. He confirmed that I didn't re-injure anything I just overdid, and he agreed it is gonna be a bit of an ever-changing dance to find the right balance of doing enough but not too much. This time I don't have to go back for three months!

Day 126: Stepping in poo

Yesterday was trick-or-treat at the campground.  The VERY first thing that happened was I stepped in a pile of poo with my Bledsoe Achilles boot. It was such a perfect metaphor of my life.  Whenever possible, I seem to step in a huge pile of poo, both literally and figuratively.

Because I'm in the midst of this flare up/setback and because the campground bans golf carts at trick-or-treat due to irresponsible drinkers, I was sentenced to man the candy bowl at the campsite. Even that, sitting at the campsite handing out candy, was strenuous for this bum foot. I spent the drive home lying on the floor of the minivan with my feet up on the back seat in search of some relief.

Lying on the floor of the minivan

Elevation at its finest

At least the view was good

By the time I got home and unwrapped my foot I could tell the swelling was noticeably better.  The pain is a little better too, but I am remaining committed to my rest-this-Achilles-TOTALLY-until-my-doctor-appointment course of action.  So... the boot stays on today. Praying this does some more good...

Day 125: Hello darkness my old friend

The downward slide continues. Now in addition to awkward swelling, I've added some significant pain when walking.  I am SUPER discouraged.  The Jami mindset does not make allowances for backward steps 😢 I see the doctor on Tuesday for my next follow up appointment so I'll get his opinion then,  but for now I'm taking some HUGE steps backward to give my foot some rest. It's not an innovative concept,  but I'm praying it will help RICE.

1. Rest... Hello darkness my old friend.... I put the boot back on to give my Achilles a rest. Gosh, I did NOT miss this thing!

2. Ice... Continuing my ice obsession. Upped my game by buying 4 more packs of frozen peas. Ice is pretty much my best friend right now. 

3. Compression... at PT they advised I wrap it with an ace bandage to squeeze the inflammation out... I've got that going on inside my boot.

4. Elevation... as often as possible I've got this foot up.  But I do NOT like being back to doing nothing for myself.

Stay tuned.... I'll update after my doctor appointment Tuesday.

Day 123: Battery Pack Bandaid

It was Tuesday... I promise you,  I remembered the Walmart debacle. Before I left the house,  I said to John,  "A quick trip to Aldi won't overdo, will it?" It would.... ohhhhhh it would.

In the second-to-last aisle, I realized it. Before I got to the register,  I text John, "Foot not doing well." When I collapsed into the driver's seat, I nearly cried.... I overdid again.

This time, though, I got a nice little booby prize for overdoing.... by the next day,  a lump of localized swelling had developed right over my Achilles. It made my ankle look kind of deformed. It hurt... some, but not too bad. I was icing and elevating like a madman,  but by this morning it wasn't really changing.  I rescheduled my PT to get an opinion from the head therapist. 

Good news: he doesn't think I damaged it...  bad news: I seem to have a bit of tendinitis flaring up. We took it easy wth exercises (I didn't have much choice cuz I was in a bunch of pain) then they sent me home with this George Jetson like bandaid.... it has some kind of anti-inflammatory medicine in it and a battery too... for 14 hours it will be delivering medicine to my tendon in the hopes of reducing the inflammation.

Jami always has to have a lesson... a takeaway to make the pain worthwhile... but honestly I'm struggling to get my bearings here... I think for now my takeaway is: save my steps for the good stuff (going to church, parties,  the campground) and leave the mundane (Walmart, Aldi, Pick N Save) in the hands of my CAPABLE assistants.

Sigh... signing off for the night... praying this high tech bandaid does it's magic.

Day 120: My 70-year old knee

As I've lamented before on this blog, the irony of this injury has been in the fact that my "good leg" (the one that's supposed to be supporting me through this rehab) has a knee with bone-on-bone arthritis. That was EXTREMELY problematic back when I was non-weight bearing, and it was beginning to become a nuisance again. Oftentimes my knee would give up well before my Achilles got tired, which was starting to hold me back.

I decided it was time to see the ortho for help with this knee... so off I trucked to start a relationship with yet another one of the AMAZING doctors at Aspen Orthopedics. After chatting with a nurse and then a PA and getting an xray, Dr. Prinze came into my life and informed me he thought it was a testament to my character that I was even walking on this knee  (i.e. you're one stubborn old bird). He said I have the knee of a 70-year old, and while there are some things we can try, I'm eventually going to need to have knee replacement surgery.

*vomit*

I told him even though I've met my out of pocket maximum for the year, I'm not interested in ANOTHER surgery right now.  So he pulled out the rest of the tools in his toolbox. 

1. Gave me a cortisone shot... (holy heavenly day those things are AWESOME! ...for a couple of days at least)

2. Measured me for some fancy,  schmancy, knee unloader brace (I'm sure there's a real, technical name for it but I don't remember it)

3. Gave me info on a 3-shot series he wants to try to get some synthetic fluid into my joint and lubricate it

I had PT right after and the therapist did a different kind of kineseo taping to my knee... Here's to hoping this will help!

Day 113: Overdid

Well.... I got cocky.... and the results were pretty disastrous..... or at least pretty painful. Yesterday at the pool, it was like I was just back to normal. So in my ultimate wisdom I decided I was ready for more. I went to Walmart all by myself. I shunned the embarrassing little handicapped person scooter, opting to just lean on my cart as needed.

My first mistake was in grossly underestimating how long I would be walking around Walmart. I started a timer to count it as exercise. I figured I might get in almost 30 minutes. When I got back to the minivan, the timer said 1 hour and 16 minutes. 😨

My second mistake was in thinking that because I could walk from my chair to the pool I was ready to walk around the entirety of Walmart. I. was. not. ready. 😣

The problem, as I explained it over and over again to those who glared at me because I overdid it, is that you don't really know you are in the process of overdoing it. You can't know until you've overdone it. That verb tense right there is my entire struggle right now.

These tragic mistakes set me back several days. I had to really up my icing game and sit my big butt back in my recliner more often. But I learned a valuable lesson:  one hour of walking is a no no.

Day 112: Reunited and it feels so good

Today I headed back to the pool.... and for the first time this season we were "reunited and it felt so goooooooood."

Because of my new found, barefoot freedom, I was able to hobble over to the pool steps and actually go in the water! It was divine.