I started physical therapy a couple of weeks ago. The experience so far has not been quite what I expected. To be quite frank it has been rather anti-climatic. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but I did think there would be more things to do once I got there. I’m very goal oriented so I wanted to be doing something –preferably exercise related with quantifiable reps. I was also prepared for pain, after all we’ve all heard PT horror stories from co-workers, friends etc ., and they always use the word pain somewhere in their descriptions. The good news is that, up to this point, there has been no pain. The bad news is that Der Kommandant (and yes my exercise friends do call me that) has not gotten a lot of exercise at PT yet. I have been given a set of exercises to do at home - most of which I had already been doing anyway.
At my initial visit my physical therapist measured my ankle six ways to Sunday to determine the ankle’s size and range of motion. Frankenfoot is 2 inches bigger than the normal ankle and, oh joy, I have a negative three on the dorseflexion scale. The plantar flexion wasn’t so hot either but at least we weren’t in the negative there. Dorseflexion, for you children at home, means how far one can point one’s toes upwards. A negative three basically means I’m screwed, at least for the time being. She also pointed out the muscle atrophy in my calf. I had to restrain a little bit of sarcasm there as no one comes out of a cast with nice lookin’ calf muscles. She then handed me a sheet of exercises to do at home and I had her watch me do two of them. We ran into a bit of a catch 22 as I could not bend my knee enough to do one of the exercises and she told me that this was due to the dorseflexion being so bad but that I had to do it properly to increase dorseflexion. Still not sure what I’m supposed to do to this day but keep giving it the old college try. After all the measuring I then got a nice foot massage and sat with my foot in hot water for fifteen minutes with electrodes in the water. I never did feel any tingling from the electrodes. She did give me one good piece of information though and that was that I was bringing my bad foot up and then stopping and bringing the good foot up to meet the bad foot. I’ve since been trying to walk with more of a stride. I did tell her that I’ve never had a “normal” gait and that my mother used to describe my walk as “jock with polio”. Also ,judging from the wear in my shoes I’ve never used the ball of my foot, ever. This might explain the tight heel chord the OS always talks about. Currently, even though I’ve gotten rid of Hermann, I am walking pretty much like Frankenstein’s monster, sigh.
My subsequent two visits were similar to the first visit sans the measuring and with the addition of five minutes on a stationary bike. On visit number four though I did get to do something new. The PT had me pick up about 30 marbles with my toes and put them in a box. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I’d already been practicing this exercise with ball bearings. She also had me use a roller under my foot which felt pretty good. Sadly though, while the increased activity has lead to some really eye-popping swelling of the ankle (with the oh so fashionable compression sock on I might add) I have not seen a lot of improvement in my gait and this has lead to some pretty severe depression on my part. I’m hoping to shake that soon but at the moment it is pretty much Bleaksville in ankle city. Hoping to report better news in the next couple of weeks
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