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Friday, May 1, 2009

On Two Legs

I am amazed at my recovery rate so far. I am by no means "walking" yet, but so close. Less than a week, I hope. It's amazing how quickly muscle deteriorates though too. My physio told me you lose muscle twice as fast as you gain it, so I understand this is going to be a process. My main problem is having enough flex in the joint to be able to complete a proper step, but my other problem is not having the muscle to even support my body enough to stand for that split second on one leg as you walk.

At first I was unable to equally distribute my weight while just standing still. Now, a week later, that's no problem. Five days ago I began walking around the "block". The first time it took me about 45 minutes, and now tonight I did it, and it took me 12 minutes. I'm excited to be able to feel change every day!

It is a weird feeling, though, knowing you cannot support yourself on one leg. It feels so awkward, and my knee sometimes doesn't stay in place, because I have nothing really supporting any of my joints. But I do little heel lifts under my desk while I work, to the point where my leg is shaking from the strain (ha! Shaking at the weight of only itself!), but it's getting better.

It's amazing how fast your body can recover. Like it remembers what it used to do, and how it liked that way better, so even if I did little to help myself along, it still seems like I would recover whether I wanted to or not.

But, we'll see how far along I make it before I plateau...Hopefully I don't. I've seen my swelling just about disappear, and been feeling the strength return in my ankle joint daily, so I am just glad to be almost walking now.

Oh, also, I took some measurements, and my broken side leg has lost 2" circumference on both my calf and quad. But, I suspect that number is also so large due to some gain on my unbroken side. I've been needing to support myself on one leg, and do a lot of balancing, and I've grown a tree trunk. At my best, I was able to hop short distances with no crutches. I've got real good at a one legged shower too. But I am glad those precarious days are gone (though, my first fall in the shower was after I was allowed to weight bare, and was standing on two legs!).

I think by next weeks update, I will be walking without crutches...I hope. I tried tonight...but not quite there yet.

1 comments:

Anonymous,  May 2, 2009 at 5:18 AM  

Hi Kath! thanks for the update! Good to hear of your progress! I am at work now so I'd better git going!Mom