Well, the hole in my leg from the sore is looking better - it's now just a tad bigger than the end of a pencil eraser - from being about the size of a nickel the last time I had a good look at it before the strips were put over it. The skin around it is looking pretty healthy, too, like good healing skin. Hoping all of that is a good sign that it'll close up sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, I've taken "moving the leg a bit" to a full on PT type schedule. At least twice a day I go through a full routine of ankle PT exercises I've found, and once a day I'm going down and getting on my bike and just getting into position and practicing shifting. It took a couple/few days before I could downshift (pulling up on the shift lever since my bike is set up for "GP" shift), but the last few days I've been able to do it as long as I get the ball joint under the lever. My toes aren't quite strong enough to do it on their own yet. The muscle memory sitting on the bike is good, too - it's easy to try to move my ankle into positions due to simple trained muscle memory. I also have been "walking" with my crutches - zero weight still (not going to fuck around with that just yet until cleared to do so), but just making my leg go through the motions while still fully supporting myself on the crutches. I've been able to come pretty close to a straight leg standing position, and while my knee is going to give me issues due to losing a lot of its supporting muscles, at least I'm seeing some progress.
Range of Motion (ROM) has been slow going. The first couple days there was a lot of improvement compared to where it had been, but now it's slower going. One of the surprising issues has been the ball joint where the fixator pin was - that has actually been causing nearly as many issues as the ankle! It literally felt like I was rehabbing a smashed ball joint (I know, because, been there, done that). Again, it's improving, but damn that thing hurt more than I expected!
Otherwise I'm WANTING to get out more. While the leg still swells when it's down for long, it goes away a lot faster now. I can regularly get up during the day and do some stuff (housecleaning, yard work, whatever) and once I can re-elevate, the swelling goes down very quickly. I don't think it's swelling as bad anymore, either. I started taking the boot off at night a couple nights ago. Sleeping with that thing was a nightmare. I don't have kids or another person who may "accidentally" jump on it - the heaviest other living thing in my house is my fattest cat, who MAYBE weighs 14 pounds...which, by this point, if a 14 pound cat is enough to screw things up, my problems are way bigger than that!
It's felt good to sleep normal again. That first night was the best sleep I've had in nearly two months. Last night wasn't as great, but a strange nightmare partway through the night didn't help matters LOL.
Life is still a PITA. The thought of going to a grocery store is still a combination of intimidating and disheartening. Other than going with my friend to Trader Joes, I've yet to go to a real grocery store. I've had a couple deliveries, but not gone in myself. Thank goodness for delivery at least! For the most part it's nice to take the leg out of the boot, but I'm wearing out the velcro already. The boot is nice when I want the leg supported and to feel safer, but it's heavy and hot the rest of the time.
Mentally still struggling, but at least with the PT I feel like I have SOME kind of control over something, which is a little helpful.
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