17 days and on track

I went to my new ortho for my 2 week check up. He is an older fellow, but says he like to ride his bike and go on B+B tours. It is always nice having a connection somehow. He took Xrays and said that whoever did my surgery did an excellent job(Thanks Dr Nofziger!) He said the main point of the Xrays was to make sure everything was in alignment and it was. He can't tell if the bones are healing up yet. He then prescribed a ridiculous western walking boot that weights five pounds. Of course, I can't walk yet, but when I can it will protect me in case of a fall. He said come back and see him in two weeks. It wasn't terrible, but I wasn't impressed. He didn't mention, nutrition, mental aspects or any other special info. He only gave me one exercise to do.

I've been working on my range of motion. My knee is pretty good, but my ankle is really bound up. I have some surgical tubing that I work on ankle flexion with. Flexing the foot is much harder than to point it. I can't see getting on the trainer quite yet. I do lots of leg lifts with my heavy walking boot and stomach exercises and of course lots of quad contractions. I have lots of edema, though. You can press on the skin of my foot and it stays pressed in for minutes.

No offense to traditional western medicine, but I need to supplement with other methods. Today, I went to my Chinese medicine Health Practioners. It was awesomely intense. They first did cranial sacral work and then did accupuncture. I'm not going to say that it doesn't feel really weird. It doesn't really hurt, its just like little electrical currents running though my body. They were able get the stagnant areas moving and better blood flow to the injury. After the needles came out, they massaged the area, especially my little fat pig foot. It felt so good, so much better.

Now the wild thing that is harder to explain and maybe harder for you to relate to is the emotional "cleansing" that took place while the needles were in. Out of nowhere, I just started balling my eyes out, almost hyerpvenilating, shaking uncontrollaby, sweating, but feeling cold. During that time, I had an intense flashback of the events surrounding and including the injury and the hospital and surgery. It was really wild. It was like I really needed to think it all through, cry about it and have a massive release psychologically. I mean its only a broken leg. But its a broken leg for a professional athlete, who was doing her last national championships and who is on the cusp on a major life change. Its hard to look at it as simply ironic.

I am craving a couple of things...a mtb ride in the high elevations of Colorado, kicking and gliding at White Grass and taking my little doggie on a long walk.