Part 7 of my “journal” related to my Lisfranc injury to my left foot.
I’ve come to realize some people may be discovering this journal late in the game, so to speak. So, I’m going to add links to the prior entries. I’ll try to remember to keep doing this with future posts.
Part 1 – And Now For Something Completely Different…
Part 2 – It’s Going To Be a Long Winter
Part 3 – Holidays On One Foot
Part 4 – Post-Op Check Number 1 – So Far, So Good
Part 5 – A Very Good Day
Part 6 – Second Post-Op Check – So You Say There’s a Chance…
Part 7 – I Can Walk (Kind Of)!
February 17, 2020
8+ weeks post-op
Do physical therapists just really like to cause pain? I think almost anyone who has undergone physical therapy has wondered about that at some point. They all deny it, of course. But would you really expect them to admit it? Of course not. They’re all going to go with the standard bit about how they like helping people.
Maybe. But I’m not totally convinced. I have to give them credit though, because they’re SO friendly and empathetic while they make you use muscles you haven’t used for weeks.
Still, while it may be true that physical therapists are sadists, by nature, that doesn’t mean that what they do isn’t important and effective when it comes to getting through the post-surgical process.
I started physical therapy on Monday, February 10, and have had four sessions. It’s been pretty remarkable how much progress I feel like I’ve made in just over a week. It may have felt like I was just doing a few relatively easy exercises that stretched foot muscles in seemingly innocuous ways, but there’s no question that those exercises have been effective.
I started the week with limited range of motion in the injured foot and a fair amount of pain twinging through the foot whenever I placed direct weight on it. By the time the week wrapped up, I was wearing a shoe, instead of the walking boot, and while I was still using crutches for balance any time I had to take more than a few steps, I was no longer having much pain except when I’d put most of my weight on the balls of my foot.
The first couple of PT sessions were mostly about working on range of motion exercises and those went pretty well. The most challenging of those was simply tring to scrunch my toes. Sitting down, lay a towel on a hard floor surface (no rug or carpet), then put your foot on the towel and try to scrunch your toes enough to gather the towel. If you’re doing it right, you essentially pull and gather the towel down from the top. Anyway, it’s tougher than it sounds.
By the third session, on Friday, I was also getting some time in on a step machine and that went real well. No pain to speak of at all during or after an 8-minute “ride.”
The fourth session, on Monday, was focused on re-learning to walk properly. Heal-arch-toe. Again, it’s something we take for granted until we haven’t done it for a while and it still causes some pain to do it, especially when I push off with the toes. It’s a lot easier if I keep my foot flat and support most of my weight on my heel and the outside of my foot, but doing that for any length of time just makes my knee sore, which isn’t a good thing either short-term or long-term.
Bottom line, I feel like I’m making progress. It’s obviously going to be a while before the foot feels anywhere close to normal, though.
I still wake up with swelling in the morning and the same is the case after any extended period of being out and about, so ice packs and elevation are still the norm. But I’m pretty much sleeping through the night (at least as much as I usually did, even before the injury).
I’ve also more or less retired the knee scooter. Most of the time, I just hobble around home from room to room, but I’m also starting to get accustomed to using a cane. It felt a little odd at first, since I was using my left hand, but then my physical therapist pointed out I was using the cane wrong and should be using my right hand. I felt kind of stupid, having to be told how to use a cane properly, but he wasn’t wrong… it’s much easier this way.
So, the scooter is semi-retired, along with the shower seat. After not being able to shower for the first few weeks after the injury, getting out of the splint and having the OK to shower at all was a blessing, both for myself and anyone who had to be near me, I’m sure. But not being able to stand in the shower was awkward, at best. Using the seat got the job done, but as soon as I felt like I could put enough weight on the injured foot to stand upright long enough to get a shower in, I stopped using that seat.
Showering is one thing, however, that results in considerable soreness and swelling. That means I really need to plan ahead for the showers. I need to make sure I have an hour or so post-shower to ice and elevate the foot before going out.
Since I have to wear a shoe on the injured foot for physical therapy, I started to get into the habit of not wearing the walking boot, even when I go out. I may have overdone that over the weekend, though. I was out and about on Saturday for several hours and ended up really sore and swollen by the time I got home. Lesson learned. I was back in the boot on Sunday and Monday when I was going out.
I’ve got a couple more PT sessions set up for this week, then the plan is to set sail (in a manner of speaking) for Florida sometime the last week of February. I’ll probably need to find a physical therapist in Fort Myers, as well, to continue the torture routine while I’m down there, but I’m hoping I’ll be wrapped up with that by the end of March.
I’m still concerned about all the swelling and discoloration that comes back any time I’m not elevating the foot and I really wish the pain any time I put weight on the balls of my left foot would subside, but I guess it will just take more time, right?