My miserable cast and stitches were removed yesterday. Good riddance! The stitches were causing about 80% of the pain, which makes me feel a little embarrassed. The achilles rupture didn't take me out, but the stitches? They pretty much turned me into a monster.
I am only feeling some superficial pain from the stitches. The biggest thing I'm dealing with is what feels like a forest fire in my boot. Turns out I carried the fire with me from cast to boot. Who would have thunk it? The healing powers are doing some kind of fire dance with bonus crackling flame sensations.
Thankfully Robert found the best ice machine ever with a bootie that fits underneath my boot. We put the machine between our heads last night and set it to 30 minutes on, 30 minutes off.
This picture is the machine taking up valuable book space. Sacrifices! Unlike the ice machine I had after my meniscus repair surgery which had the plug beneath my foot, I can unplug this one on my own. This is what eleven years of technology advancements looks like.
Josie has been absolutely glued to me since this whole thing started, but even more in the last few days, especially at night. We weren't sure what she would think of the ice machine and long hose, but she squeezed herself in. Each time I woke up to rotate myself she was there and a couple times she was even laying on the hose, which didn't look comfortable at all.
She does something I've only known one other dog to do. She stretches herself out so that she's touching me from head to toe. Each time I turn she makes small adjustments so that she's still snuggled as close as she can get. Rose, our maternal and sometimes stern reincarnation of Emily Post, would do this same thing. It's a little like being in a roller grill but the hot dog next to you is glued to you and covered in fur. Sometimes Josie cuddles so close she oozes into my roller grill spot when I rotate. After about five turns I only have about five inches of bed space left, and poor Robert has to help me roll her back to her own spot on the roller grill. This is how it's been going a few times a night:
"Robert?"
Silence.
"Robert!"
Some kind of unintelligible noise.
"Your dog's butt."
That's all I have to say, and he knows it's time to help me move her again.
I just can't get over this dog. She is taking such good care of me. I think Josie and Robert's care have doubled the healing powers in my house. The beams of light from these two care bears is probably what's fueling the forest fire.
I am wearing all four wedges in my boot right now and non-weight bearing. One by one the wedges will disappear, and as each one disappears I will become weight bearing 25% at a time (and probably have a taco party each time too).
I start PT next week, and I already know the first question I am going to ask. I have been separated from my home workouts for too long, and I've already modified the lists to remove the things I can't do at the moment (see you later sumo squats and planks) and left the things I can do (hello upper body weights and leg lifts).
At the exact moment I had the achilles injury Robert was busy coding a new version of my home workout list. Prior to the summer, I used a program (shortcut) Robert created to pull 25 numbers from from my exercise list, which has about 100-150 exercises. Sometimes multiple numbers appeared in the same workout - like a motherload of planks (which I did 30 miserable seconds at a time because that's my max time). Sometimes the random numbers were balanced. Sometimes the numbers zinged the other way and I would spend an ungodly amount of time rolling muscles and doing breathing exercises.
Over the summer I learned the importance of sequencing, and an expert went over my exercises with me. We deleted a few that were either not a good fit or they just weren't good for your body (turns out sit ups are terrible for you!). We added in the ones I needed to do for my specific kind of pelvic floor therapy, and the last thing we did was sort them into four categories - warming, strength, balance, and stretching/mindfulness. Cardio is important too, but it's separate from the home workouts. Robert was busy coding a program that would give me a list of 3-7 exercises per category. In addition to creating a program for the four different categories, Robert was factoring in duration too (gotta love his beautiful nerd brain). There are longer exercises like sun salutations and shorter ones like getting off the floor with zero assists (although there are days this one takes longer!). I was initially worried about the sequencing, because the surprise of various random generators and shortcuts is a small gift to myself and also helps my mind relax. With Robert's program I will be able to follow the sequencing while still randoming the numbers within each category.
I know I will not be able to play tennis for another 8-11 months. But getting my daily exercises back and doing my PT will be a huge mood boost for me. I've heard it's not going to be easy, but any work I can do will help me feel like I'm doing something to put all the pieces back together again. Who knows, by the end of the year I might be going for walks with my care bear homies.
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