Got both my feet on the ground. Walking in boot.

Hi everyone, 

I thought I would share some positive results to perhaps help some of you that are anxious and healing from ORIF surgery. I had a bimalleour fracture with dislocation and distal fib fracture on July 19, surgery on July 21. Once I had surgery, any pain or discomfort was pretty much gone. I was in a soft cast for 2 weeks (during that period I used a wheel chair because I'm to clumsy for crutches) and then put in a hard cast. The doc wrote a perscription for a knee scooter. That really gave me a lot more mobility while staying non-weight bearing. I reall stuck with the nonweight bearing instructions. I was in the hard cast until this Monday Sept. 12. During that time I saw my doc 3 times. He would take an X-ray to check how things were healing and then replace the cast. When they removed the cast, they put me n a boot. Doc said I could be fully weight bearing.  I was instructed to keep the boot on when walking but to take it slow and build up my walking. He said I could bath and sleep without the boot. It was ok to walk with out it to go the the bathroom at night or short moves around the house. I could take it off while sitting. It was amazing to put both my feet on the floor. I had pain in my foot and my leg. I was unsure of my stability so I used my scooter to get out of the office. Now ladies my lower leg and foot was not pretty when the cast came off. My husband had less hair on his leg than I had on mine LOL. My foot was coated in paper like dried skin and looked darker than the leg. So I went straight home, ran a tub bath. It felt so good to soak my leg and foot. I got that leg shaved and foot exfoliated...AHHHHHH. I pushed to go ahead and get an appointment with Physical therapy the same week because I was going to be out if town the following week. I wanted to get an evaluation and exercises to do so I wouldn't fall behind. Specifically one that specializes in Sports Medicine. There once an opening the next day. Once I got home I started working on walking. I'll go ahead and tell you it is painful. If you can take Ibuprofen, I think it helped me. But if you can work thru the pain it does improve. I started with short steps getting used to the rocking motion of the boot. You try to walk normally heel to toe toe to heel. It helps if you have a shoe that is built up a little. I used a good walking tennis shoe and a sandal with a wedge sole on my good foot. By the next day I was getting around readonably well. I was able to walk further before it would get to painful. My pain was in my heel, along both sides of my lower leg. I felt a lot of tightness in the back of my leg. I walked slowly focusing on taking normal steps and I would stop periodically when the pain and fatigue increas.  To be continued.

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