Day 7 - First Physical Therapy Session

Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2012 - Week 9

I can't believe it has been a week since my cast came off! After 2 days of waiting, the Wellness Center finally called me today to come in for my first Physical Therapy appointment! I got in at 12:45 and was scheduled in there for an hour session. Everyone seemed very nice and attentive. I met my Physical Therapist Colleen and told her I was very nervous. She brought me into my room and started with the evaluation. She was very nice as well. She asked me some questions about my health and about the injury and explained to me well what she will be doing. Then some measurements were made of my ankle to compare it to the other ankle and had me stand to see how much weight I can put on it. Next, she said we'll be entering the gym area just behind that other door in the room to have me crutch from one end of the room to the next. When I saw the gym they had, I was amazed how big and the amount of equipment they had! It was exciting to see all this. At the other end of the room, I noticed a door with a sign leading to the pool. 

After her review of me walking on crutches from one end of the room and back to her, she said I have a very good prognosis. We headed back to our room and she created goals for me to reach for and will construct exercises to accommodate how I am feeling in my progress. It looks like I will need about 3 months of Physical Therapy, we'll see how well I do. After about a month, she may have me start running in the pool. Exciting news! I'm not in pain and well on my way to recovery. She then taught me a few more exercises I needed to do at home and continue coming in twice a week for a month, and later down to once a week. Then she massaged my leg muscles and foot to activate my muscles and nerves. That felt realllly good haha. My chicken leg would take about 8 weeks to rebuild all the muscles. Seems so long. I have to be diligent with my homework to see progress. Before letting me go, she had me go back out to the gym area and cycle for 10 minutes with no resistance. So far so good, no pain, just pressure on the foot since the muscles haven't been used. And she sends me off to schedule in the rest of my appointments! Sounded like it was a great first session!

I get home to take a shower and more dead skin comes off! I am feeling a bit sore from Physical Therapy and no pain. It was a good day. My surgical incision is healing nicely Colleen had said. I'm just waiting for that one more layer of dead dry blood to fall off. My skin is looking better and less dry. The new skin feels so soft and gentle, like baby skin. I still have a bit of a rash from the irritated spots where the scabs were. I'm almost there!

The inside of my ankle is still a bit bruised from the dislocation. I still have a bit of sensitive skin as well as you can see the little red bumps on my leg. It is looking better by the day though. We'll see what happens tomorrow!