One At A Time Please

So, remember my last blog entry, when I was like "I don't have any pain!"?  Turns out, I spoke too soon, which I often do.  Allow me to clarify that I don't have pain in my lisfranc joint, or my navicular.  The newest problem to plague my right foot is my right ankle.  Grr.  I'd like to get healed from my Lisfranc injury first, without getting another problem added in to the mix.

I was at physical therapy, talking to Stephanie about last week's progress, and she always asks about pain.  I explained that the last few days of walking (especially Monday after I overdid it at work trying to be Super CC) my ankle was starting to get really sore, and kind of swollen and puffy.  She had my slip my foot out of the boot so that she could examine and I showed her where I was getting the pain.  She pressed down on a couple of spots (OUCH! Tender!) and judging my reactions, she was like "Oh, that's your blah blah tibial tendon blah"...which a google result showed me later as my posterior tibial tendon.

Apparently, this tendon gets really weak when it is not being used.  As I've not been using it for 4 months, and now I'm trying to do this fancy thing called walking, my tendon is having none of that.  Stephanie said that I was fine to continue walking, but I should not be pushing through the pain if the tendon is starting to get sore and painful.  If I am not careful, it could develop into tendinitis and once that tendon develops it, it is really hard to get rid of.  It feels like a little bit of a set back, because I was getting really used to walking whenever I wanted!  My only instruction was to just be careful with it, and to ice it with an ice cup if needed.

I got a new set of exercises.  Mostly they are balance exercises, which I HATE because they are SO hard!  Balancing on my right leg, balancing on my right leg while doing stuff with my left leg, and stepping up the step with my right leg.  Everything still feels so weak and wobbly and I need to hold on to something most of the way through the exercises, but it should start to improve and I can go longer and longer without having to hold on.  The best exercise though is that I get to "walk" in my shoe for 4 minutes a day.  Heel to toe, step with the left, heel to toe, step with the right.  I move so slow, and I teeter and wobble the whole time.  Who thought that walking could be so damn hard!

Next session... we will work on weaning out of the boot.  I'm kind of scared!  But also excited.  Mostly excited.  I see the Dr. on the 25th to get another x-ray and figure out when my next surgery is going to be.