January 28, 2014: late last night, I got an email from my employer saying the office will open at 10am due to expected icy roads. Sounds like I get to sleep in. Excellent! Then I check my calendar - PT appointment at 8am. Bummer. At least I won't have to take sick leave. I settle in for a fitful night's sleep, as the cold weather appears finally to have lived up to my expectations and ramped up the pain.
At 5am, my phone alerts me with some frantic vibrating that the battery is about to die. Looks like the charger either came partially unplugged or died. If my phone dies, a) my alarm won't go off, potentially causing me to miss PT or, b) I miss the call from my PT cancelling my appointment and brave the cold and ice unnecessarily. I don't like either option, so I find a new charger, plug in my phone and ensure it is charging, and climb back in bed. The pain in my foot was not bad enough to wake me up, but now that I am awake, it is bad enough to keep me that way. I huddle under the covers, cursing Apple and climate change, until it is time to get ready for PT. As I am bundling up to leave the house for my appointment, the phone rings. It is my PT - she's stuck on the road trying to get in and wants to reschedule me for 10:30. I decide to have a leisurely breakfast and take care of some work from the comfort of my couch.
Mid-morning, I get another email from my employer. Conditions continue to be bad and the office will not open until noon. So, other than not getting to sleep in, I'm in just as good of shape as I was last night. Or so I think. About 10am, I get another call from my PT. She is still in traffic - can we reschedule for 1pm? At this point I am glad I am not her, so I readily agree. I can still be in the office by 2:30, 3pm at the latest.
Finally get to my appointment at 1pm. She begins by taking measurements to check my progress since the last session. Using what looks like a protractor (and maybe is, in fact, a protractor), she determines that I have more mobility in the right foot than last time. She also uses a tape measure to determine that the foot is 3cm less swollen than last time. Woo-hoo! (Must have been the Lyrica.) She has me do some fairly simple exercises and watches me walk, gently reminding me that my strides are still too long and I'm still walking too fast. I feel like a charm school reject. She also massages my foot and leg muscles for awhile, which doesn't feel as good as you would imagine.
Then the real fun begins. We go to the treadmill and she begins to fit me into the harness to keep the weight off my foot. This is what it feels like:
But I'm pretty sure this is what it looks like:
She sets the timer for four minutes at a very low speed and I begin walking. At about two minutes in, I get an unpleasant surprise - my left knee starts catching. She stops the treadmill for a minute and I stretch it out. She starts it again, and I make it another minute before it happens again. She decides three minutes is sufficient. We go back to the table and she works on my knee for a few minutes until there is a loud crack, which she claims is a good thing. I bundle back up and head home to change clothes for work.
By the time I get home, it is obvious I won't be going to the office today. The combination of PT, cold weather, and driving has done me in. I snuggle up under a blanket on the couch with my warmest slippers on and finish working from home.
I'm pretty sore from the PT exercises and my knee isn't too happy with me, but those things are to be expected and I can live with them. What's scaring me is the continuing pain in my foot. I joke about the 1-10 scale, but there are times like tonight when I honestly don't know how to categorize it. I'm just going to use 9+. Right now, I'm determined not to use any pain medications that will affect my ability to function in a way that I consider normal. I only have a week until the nerve block, and I'm banking on it working.
My other fear is the increasing pain in my left foot. For the moment, it's confined to my big toe and there is no discoloration, so I will chalk it up to cold weather, arthritis, and PT. If it doesn't improve when the weather warms up this weekend, I guess I'll have to come up with a plan B.
And I just swallowed my gum. http://movieclips.com/nM9aq-the-sure-thing-movie-i-have-a-credit-card/
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