Upgrade / Downgrade?

Dispatch from the broken leg update: I started physical therapy today. I felt so good before today, like I had really turned a corner in my healing, and I was on my way to walking like a healthy two-legged person. No, I’m not as close as I thought.

I learned today that the boot has been doing all the muscle and tendon work for me, so my tendons and muscles are really painful and tight. I got upgraded today to a splint instead of the boot, and, surprisingly, it hurts worse. I couldn’t wait for the splint, but now my muscles and tendons are learning to work on their own again, and it’s quite painful. I’m now walking slower today than I was yesterday with the boot.

All complications aside, it does feel great to be out of the boot, and my ankle does feel happy (if not sore) to be moving again. I’ll be doing physical therapy for another four weeks, but my total healing time will be another 20 weeks. My physical therapist said that recovery time is generally two times the length of time I was in the boot. I had the boot for ten weeks, thus 20 weeks from now I can expect to be pretty much healed.

Somehow, it seems my healing time keeps getting pushed further and further away. Not that everyone hasn’t been honest with me about healing, but as I get further into healing, the end seems farther away.

I’m walking. I’m walking slowly, but I’m walking. One foot pushed in front of the other, here I go….