back to 2 shoes!

After 9 long weeks my appointment to see the consultant came around finally! I went to the hospital on Thursday and had an xray and then had the cast removed, my appointment this time was not with Mr Shah sadly, who was my surgeon and has been my consultant on my 2 previous visits to the Fracture Clinic. I saw a different consultant this time, in fact I don't even know his name! He was very pleasant though and showed me my xrays, which I hadn't seen since being in Plymouth hospital.  He explained about the healing  and physio and asked if I had any questions, I asked about timescale to get back to normal, but he explained everyone varies. I go back in 3 months time, at which point he explained I should be back to normal activity.  But what is normal activity? For me that means running 2-3 times a week, which I doubt!  I also wanted to know how often physio would be.  Once a week on the NHS unfortunately! Not a lot really!

When I first tried to walk on my newly released leg, I couldn't put my heel down so was walking on the ball of my foot, and was told to use crutches again until I readjusted.  As soon as I got home I got straight in the bath to exfoliate and soak off the unbelievable amounts of dry skin which was peeling off in sheets all around my ankle and foot. Not to mention the hair that had grown, in fact I have some ingrowing hair follicles as the hair was obviously struggling to break through with a cast on, horrible!

I went straight to Nuffield Health & Leisure centre from the hospital and booked into their 2 month health & physio programme which gives me 5 physio sessions plus gym membership.  The physio may take place in the pool or gym so should be quite varied.  It will be interesting to compare NHS to private treatment!  I will get a contribution to the Nuffield physio package from my employer health plan, so that's  a bit of a bonus.

I am now limping around the house with no crutches and doing the basic exercises that the NHS gave me , 3-4 times a day and trying to walk on it and put it through its full range of movement (with pain!).  Its pretty much painful all the time and also swollen all the time, and I also need to keep elevating it as I did in the first 4 weeks.

I am very impatient and want to see instant improvement but I know now that this is going to take time, to repair the soft tissue, stabilise the bone and metal work and reduce the pain and swelling.

I know a few things for sure, no running or heels for a long long time, if ever....