Look, Ma, no Crutches!

I know I am a bit ahead of schedule in actually taking a few steps without ANY assistive device, but I am being careful and only doing so in the house. Sometimes I have the CAM boot on, sometimes not, and this draws a little consternation from Lucy but, throughout this whole ordeal, I have been listening to what my body says and it has been telling me this is OK, just testing the waters!

The past two weeks of physical therapy have involved enjoying a nice manual stimulation of the foot and ankle in the office, then ending each session with learning some new range of motion exercises that I am to do at home. In the first session, I blanched when PT guy told me to point my foot up towards me (meaning in a stretch exercise). My mind said "can't do it without it feeling weird" but my foot went ahead and did it anyway. He has also had me rock the foot from side to side, around in small circles each way and, just last week, I sat on the edge of my couch with both feet on the floor and slowly pulled up my right heel (leaving the ball of the foot on the floor) ten times, and then pulled up the ball of my foot, (leaving the heel on the floor). The most exhausting one of all consists of lying on my back and putting a large pillow between my feet, then pressing in on the pillow with each foot (so the toes are aimed at the center of the pillow), holding this for ten seconds each time. It certainly has put me in touch with muscles I haven't used for a while! I have never felt any pain doing these exercises, just a very tight feeling right around the ankle, like something in there is encased in cement and needs a lot of wiggle room!

I had the ultimate frustration on Friday because Lucy had a health issue and needed to go to her doctor's, with the hope that she would be back in time to take me to physical therapy. As luck would have it, the doctor ordered her to go to the E.R. for some tests meaning I had to get a taxi both ways (to the tune of about $30.00), but that really wasn't the worst part. Because I had no way of knowing that my partner would end up in the E.R., I wasn't there to support her or just be at her side during the several hours she was there. Some friends in the area came over and sat with her, even having her sleep over at their house that evening because she was in no shape to drive. I sat her alone in my home wishing I could be with her but then, realizing later, it was probably good that I didn't go because there would have been TWO of us needing a place to crash that night, and these friends have a small apartment and, for some reason, I am more allergic there to their animal hair/dander than I am here and I always suffer for it. Still, it was just one of those times when my inability to drive and be independent left me feeling kind of sorry for myself and also for my partner having to go through something without me.

If all goes as it has been going so far, it looks like I could be back at work three weeks from tomrrow. My executive director has already gleefully slated me to do an inservice the very morning I return, to educate our staff on boundaries which is something, in Hospice care, you always need a little tune-up on. I do find it kind of ironic that I am coming back to teach about boundaries when my health has forced me to erect one of my own these past few months in order to best take care of myself. Maybe that's the whole point of having me do this lecture my very first day back to work: who would know better than me how it feels to take a giant step back from the "fire" and just enjoy the warmth rather than be part of it!