Walking down the stairs!

I started to walk down the stairs with the crutches yesterday. Woo hoo!

I never hopped down the stairs with the crutches before because it scared the crap out of me. But now that I can walk one-step-at-a-time, walking down is a breeze.

It's a little victory, but now that I can move up and down with relative ease, my life is getting a bit easier!

Bill's PT Routine

My Physical Therapy is coming along nicely. A couple of people ask what I do at PT, so here's the list... I go through the following items in about an hour and 10 minutes.


Stretching

• Calf stretches; straight leg - 5 reps, 30 seconds each
  
• Calf stretches; bent leg - 5 reps, 30 seconds each

Ankle Non-Weight Bearing Excercies

• Dorsiflexion/Plantar Flexion - move ankle/foot toward you and away from you (up and down) - 20 reps
• Inversion / Eversion - move ankle/floot side-to-side - 20 reps
• Rotation - 20 reps clockwise / 20 reps counter-clock wise
• The same exercises as above but on the baps board (pic below)
  
• Toe lifts - 20 reps
• Heel pumps - 20 reps

This is the BAPS board... my exercises involve making sure that the ends of the board touch the ground. Each week, they put a bigger ball on the bottom, which requires that my ankle be required to do more work to have the ends touch. Note: I don't stand up on this thing yet. My exercises are sitting down.


Weight Bearing Exercises

• Weight shifts - 10 reps, 10 seconds each
  
• Bike - 10 minutes on level 4 (feels like bicycling on air, though)
• Wall/Back Thrusts - 10 reps; 2 times
• Stair stretch - put foot on stair and lean forward - 3 reps; 30 seconds each
• Shuttle - 10 reps; 3 times

Message and Cooling

• I get about a 15 minute massage of my foot and ankle to push the blood out (it helps reduce the swelling). Since I started phyiscal therapy, my foot size went down 2.5 centimeters - this is almost half of my swelling!
  
• Finally... I spend 10 minutes in the cryo cuff. It's a boot that they pump cold water into. Apparently, I'm only one of two people in the place that actually like it.

Lego Minifig Parade

Neya and I made a Lego Minifugre Parade yesterday.

New Deck!

Just in time for summer to end, we finally have our new deck!

The new deck is twice as long (it extends across the entire back of the house). The floor is composite (for easy care), the railings are metal, and the railing is cedar (which we'll need to seal and stain). The steps will be completed tomorrow.

Bill can stand!

I had my second day of physical therapy today, and I was able to stand today!

Some folks have been asking me what I do at physical therapy.... the first two sessions included:

• ankle exercises (rotation, lateral, radial, up/down, calf stretches)
• weight bearing exercises (stand up, slowly shift weight onto ankle, take weight off, repeat)
• exercise bike
  
• 15-20 minutes of massage (to help get the swelling down)
• 10 minutes in a cold water boot
  

First day at Physical Therapy.

I had my first appointment with my Physical Therapist today.

Overall, it was very good. I had about a half hour of exercise and a bunch of history, measurements, massage, and some liquid cooling boot for my ankle.

I'll be in physical therapy for 3 days a week for the next month. The goal is to get my walking in three weeks. Woo-Hoo!

Interesting fact of the day: My right foot is 6cm bigger than my left foot (due to the swelling). That's a lot of centimeters!

One small step for Bill

... one giant leap to normalcy.

After two months of splints, casts, and a surgery, I finally had my cast removed today. Tomorrow, I start about a month of physical therapy. In the mean time, I can start putting a little bit of weight on my foot!

Hooray!!!

The picture on the right shows my ankle from three different views. You can see the screws and plate which were put in to provide more support. After physical therapy, I will get the screws and plate removed (one more trip to the hospital).