progress

progress

Today I went to see my ankle doctor and got the news I was hoping for: I don't have to use my walking cast anymore!!! I don't even have to wear a brace on my ankle. I get to walk around with normal shoes on again. I've already been doing this a little in physical therapy, but now I get to do it all the time. Walking without the cast on is such a weird feeling. I didn't think it would be so hard, since I've been weight-bearing for a while already, but there's a huge difference with the cast on versus walking without it. It hurts a lot and basically I have to re-learn how to walk. The walking cast totally immobilized my ankle, so it's really stiff. If you ever want a really awesome roll-step, wear a walking cast for a while.

I got another bit of good news, too: my doctor wants me to stop using the crutches. It's going to take a while to wean myself off them though. A few days ago my physical therapist told me to try walking with only one crutch, and it was incredibly difficult. I didn't even know where to begin. I eventually was able to kind of scoot my foot a little bit. It's hard because not only does my leg hurt a lot, but it's really weak. Hopefully I'll be able to do it this week in PT.

My doctor wants to do a minor procedure on my ankle, so I'm going to have it done this week (Thursday) while I'm still on winter break. The incision from the surgery I had on 11/1 never healed well, so he's just going to cut out the icky skin and stitch the skin around it together. We discovered that my skin doesn't like dissolving stitches, which were used in that other surgery, so that's probably why it didn't heal very well. My doctor told me that I "heal funny". He learned how to do incisions from a plastic surgeon, so he's a perfectionist about creating incisions that won't leave big scars. But he said that my skin is stubborn and creates all kinds of scar tissue after every surgery. He stepped in during my knee surgery, and apparently neither of my doctors had ever seen so much scar tissue. Apparently it's not a bad problem or anything, it's just weird. Oh well.

I have an appointment set up for next week with an ears/nose/throat specialist because my face still hurts and is swollen. I wonder if I fractured something. It doesn't really make a difference if it's fractured or not, but it's good to get things like that in my medical records. Also, we need to make sure my sinuses didn't get damaged. I have to miss my first class of the semester to go to that appointment. Oh well... I have a feeling I'll be missing a lot of classes to go to appointments. That's life.

Today marks three months since the accident, and I've been thinking a lot about how far I've progressed physically. I still have a long way to go before I'm "normal" - every movement I make is still hampered in some way by what I've been through. But I'm starting to feel more like myself again. And after today's appointment, I know it won't be too much longer before I'm able to move back to EC, and drive, and do all those other things I used to take for granted.