![]() ![]() These feelings are very much intertwined with my physical condition. I’ve experienced fear, depression, helplessness, flashbacks and frustration. I didn’t talk about it much before but the emotional challenges are almost as difficult as the physical ones. Scar on outside of left ankle (plate and 6 screws) My ankles first thing in the morning with no swelling I don’t plan to have it removed because it’s not causing me any problems and I really don’t want another surgery. The left one will always be a little bigger now with all the hardware installed. They look the most alike in the morning when there’s no swelling. The left ankle is the one that had surgery. My toes also used to be quite stiff but now are normal. I’ll just keep plugging away at it until I get to 100 percent recovery. But that has improved recently as a result of the new things I’ve been doing with my therapy. My ankle moves pretty normally in all directions except for dorsiflexion. Now the only time I feel anything like that is when I’m massaging my foot. I used to feel it when I barely touched the top of my foot. I’ve only felt the need to use the ice pack once in the last few months. Swelling is limited to right around the ankle and not the rest of the foot as before. There’s still a bit of swelling depending on how much standing I do during the day. I’m really excited about the results and will probably do a separate post on that later. I attribute these pains to tight tendons and ligaments so I’ve been doing some new things in the last month that have made a big difference. ![]() Standing on tiptoe with the left leg hurts less than it used to. Sometimes there’s soreness when I relax my foot and discomfort (and random sharp pains) during dorsiflexion. ![]() I have little to no pain walking most of the time and I am limp-free. I can even walk around in high heels for a very short period of time.Īnd here’s the breakdown by symptom. A couple of things I can do now that I wasn’t able to before are running and jumping jacks. Last June I reported being 95 percent recovered and able to do almost all of my normal activities. The physical problems I’ve been dealing with this last year are pain, swelling, numbness and stiffness. How I’m doing after rehabbing my broken ankle for one year An update on the physical problems Thinking of her helps me get through the tough times. This is a woman who has to spend the whole day on her feet and she looked perfectly normal. To demonstrate that she jumped up and down, skipped around and stood on her tiptoes. One of them told me she had had trimalleolar surgery a few years ago and said she was just fine now. I was fortunate enough to get that reassurance from the wonderful nurses who were prepping me for surgery. Yikes! I know they have to prepare you for the worst but at least they could also mention the possibility you could recover fully. The way she said it was anything but encouraging. The physician’s assistant told me the best outcome would be that I would walk again. When I started this “journey” I was given very little information about what was going to happen and how long it would take to recover. And I wanted to let everyone know that since there are so few success stories to be found out there. But I’m happy to report I’m doing very well now. This last year has been the most difficult one of my life, physically and emotionally. The surgeon had done his work and now it would be up to me to get back on my feet. Those were the words I had waited 67 days to hear after breaking my ankle last September. Exactly one year ago today my doctor told me I was allowed to walk again following trimalleolar surgery. ![]()
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