Day 062 – Rehabilitation

Welcome to Day 62!

Who would have thought rehabilitation would be so hard?  Oh, okay.  I thought it would be hard, but it’s also painful.  When the break occurred, it was at that moment that I felt I knew pain.  However, it was momentary; then the adrenaline kicked in and pain without medication seemed a breeze.  

Over the cast wearing weeks, there were a few moments when the pain was too niggly to sleep – that was a handful of times. Now that the cast is off, walking in the moonboot is awkward and painful.   

Even though there had been warnings of swelling, those comments were received with a haughty air and a “it won’t happen to me” attitude.  No prizes for guessing that karma would come back to prove me wrong. Right from the beginning swelling hadn’t been a problem and thought that it would avoid me entirely – nuh-uh! Full blown swelling is happening with frozen peas and leg elevation being taken seriously.  

You may have been reading since the beginning, my comments on the medical attention and expertise received to-date have been faultless. Right from when the Ambulance arrived to my arrival at Tweed Hospital, to the Royal Brisbane Hospital (RBH)’s Fracture Clinic I have had nothing but excellent services.  The recent visit wasn’t on par to what I had received to-date and lacked that bit of care.  

The cast was removed using a really cool cutting tool, it used vibration instead of a blade to cut through it – really cool!  Once the cast was removed, I went for an x-ray, waited awhile then the doctor arrived after reviewing the results and said I was right to go.  At that point I asked whether I needed a moonboot (my ankle felt quite vulnerable). There was a momentary pause before he organised for the nurse to contact physio for a moonboot. 

Physio arrived with a moon-boot which is too large, but better than nothing.  The young woman was beautiful and explained how to wear the boot and fitted it to size.  Recommending that on the other foot, I might like to wear a little bit of a heel because the moon-boot gives you a bit of height. 

Once Physio had finished, the doctor returned and basically said that I should walk with the moon-boot for four weeks.  The instructions were a little vague even for the four weeks the boot is meant to be worn.  When asked if about going for a walk, he said I could walk on it as much as I wanted. It was like he was elsewhere when it came to me.  The guy beside me must have had a worse fracture than me because he got clear instructions on what he could and couldn’t do.  For me it appeared, yep, it healed away you go. 

There was no advice about physio, no pamphlets, nothing to help in case I forgot what the doctor had advised.  There was also meant to be a follow-up appointment organised at the four week mark but haven’t heard anything yet.  Guess the awesome service ended there. Very thankful that the awesome service lasted as long as it did.  

As for a physio plan, the Internet is a great resource because it led me to a fabulous document published by the Royal Berkshire Hospital on physiotherapy following an ankle fracture.   Exactly what I needed.  The document aligns to what I’ve heard, nonetheless, booking in with my doctor might be a good idea.  Hopefully, whatever recommendations the doctor at the Fractures Clinic recommended will have been sent through to her.

Anyway, moving the ankle is painful.  The document recommends pushing the pain tolerances to get the exercises done.  It’s just interesting how much the muscles have atrophied into a solid lump of seeming inflexibility.  It didn’t help that I missed the end of the early exercises and got all the way through the exercises except for the final one where it’s asking you to, what is known in yoga circles as a “tree pose”, stand on one leg – the broken one!  At this point, I’d gone too far and backtracked to realise I’d been attempting the “intermediate” exercises.  No wonder my ankle’s swollen and no amount of cursing shifted the pain. 

Tomorrow’s healing therapy will be to try some Vipassana meditation to work through the chunks of pain.  Just kidding, knowing me and pain I’ll probably find a reason not to do it preferring to deal with the pain rather than accelerating the healing.  After all, there are times when you can’t hurry something.  

There was a motivational speaker in the 90s, Dan McMillan, who told a story of speaking to a 12 year old and asking him what he wanted to be when he grew up.  The 12 year old replied that he wanted to be a retired businessman.  Smart 12 year old!  However, the lesson in the story was that there are some things that you can’t shortcut.  You’re not able to go from ingredients to baked cake without going through a cooking process.  Likewise with healing an ankle.

Let’s see what the cards have to say!