PT, day 1

Holy crap.

I was with the physical therapist for about 15 minutes. To be fair, I had to fill out a lot of paperwork beforehand, and today was all about "measuring" how far I can move my ankle. I put the word measuring in quotes because despite using a fancy protractor-like tool, the answer was basically "not at all" and therefore measuring was not necessary.

My therapist's name is Kate. Or Katie or something that sounds like that, so we're going to call her Kate, aka Helga the Horrible. When I took off the boot and she saw my leg she said, "Oh my god, it's so tight." It is quite solid.

We started by measuring my good leg. I failed the test. I felt like I should have been warned that there would be a pop quiz so I could have stretched or something before-hand, but as I've mentioned, it's really impossible to do stretches with one leg immobilized. Even when stretching the other leg I found it difficult to find a position that I could sustain and even then I wasn't getting a good stretch. So I stopped stretching. That bit me in the ass today. I could practically hear the "tsk tsk" of the therapist as she measured how much I can flex and point my toe, how much I can turn it to the right or left, and how much I can curl my toes. She wrote down her findings and turned on my left leg.

It is important to note that one exercise had me completely baffled. I was supposed to turn my ankle in or out as if pointing my toe to something to the right or left without moving my leg. This made perfect sense after the fact when she showed it to me when I was sitting up. But she originally had me trying this while on my stomach, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out where she wanted me to point my damn toe. "Like this," she'd say while manhandling my foot. I can't see you, genius, I have no idea what the hell you're doing to me.

I thought it was good that she had done all the movements on my right leg first because I'd know what to expect. It turns out this just made me really nervous. She wasn't gentle and she didn't slowly maneuver my ankle, she just went for it. First we did the twisting thing I didn't understand. Helga asked me to first do the motion as far as I could on my own, then she'd grab the ankle and "help." I twisted my ankle. She said, "Is that all?" It was all.

She compared the degree of movement to my right leg. Obviously, all the measurements were less than the right leg was, but twisting to the left is nearly comical. I could only move it 3 degrees. Not good.

Then I turned onto my stomach and bent my knee. This was the part I knew was going to hurt: flexing and pointing my left foot. I was supposed to start at neutral, which is 90 degrees, but I was so far from there that was just started from where my foot was. First she had me flex it myself. I didn't do much. Then she started pushing all her weight against the foot to move it down. As the pain built (quickly) with each degree the foot moved I felt a cracking in my ankle like when you pop your knuckles, but not in a place where you should be able to pop anything. It was excruciating. I tapped out. And by tapped out I mean I started crying and begging "please stop!" She informed me that she hadn't been able to get my foot to 90 degrees.

Then she did the pointing, which was also painful but she was a bit more gentle because of the previous crying. Finally, Kate did something to feel how my mid-foot was moving. I didn't cry, which was a step in the right direction.

Finally, she started squishing my scars. I knew this would happen because of previous scar-squishing experience. I hate it hate it hate it. However, I'm going to get married in the foreseeable future and I don't want you all looking at my nasty scar, I want you admiring my amazing shoes (high heeled, preferably). Then I got some exercises to do at home and I was on my merry way.

The bad thing about PT was everything. The good thing about PT was that I now know how gentle and careful I don't have to be with my ankle. I've been really scared to do anything with it and now that I know you can shove it around so much I'm feeling a bit more comfortable having it out of the boot.

I just did my exercises again (three times a day!) and while they are all uncomfortable, I was shocked by the one that is by far the worst. I thought the pointing/flexing of the toe would be the worst. Alas, it is not. The evil motion is this: Put your feet flat on the floor (no pressure, remember, I'm non-weight bearing). Then lift your toes. For some unknown reason this is HORRIBLE. I can get my toes a max of a few centimeters off the ground and the pain is really quite intense.

I'm pretty down about the lack of motion in my ankle. I knew it would be bad, so it's not like I wasn't expecting this, but my ankle is basically cement and I'm very concerned about the future prospects of my ankle movement. What if I can never move it the way I used to? Sigh.

So here's a video of me moving my right foot and trying really hard to move the left. It's hard to see the motion sometimes because you're seeing it from an odd vantage point, but you'll get the drift. I'll practice doing a better job.

Anyway, the next appointment with Helga is Monday. I'm going to go scrunch my scars now.