I am back home from camping on friends' land and boy am I tired. It was worth it though, The weather was beautiful and that company was great. So let me fill you up on more on what happened this last year.
When I stopped blogging I was going to a PT place once a week during the day. I had to find a new place that was open during the evenings because I was going to start working 8:00 to 4:30. I ended up calling a cousin of mine who is a physical therapist and she recommended a place where her husband worked that was opened Tues and Thurs evenings. He is obviously a physical therapist as well.
Long story short we stated working on the same things the old place was. We were doing stretching, balance, and a new thing called ultrasound. Now this is a technique that can help loosen up tight muscles. He worked mostly on the bottom of my feet and my ankles. Over the last year we no longer have to do much to the right as it is completely flat on the ground. The left still needs a little work but there has been much improvement.
On balancing we are now up to taking an exercise ball and moving it in to different locations while standing. I place it above my head down to my knees, left and right, over my head to the left, over my head to the right, down to my knees on the left and down to my knees on the right. I am doing all of this with my PT just supervising.
I have improved a lot in the area of walking. When I stated at GEICO I was using my wheelchair to get in and out. I was using it in the house and whenever I went out. A co-worker lent me a walker to use while at work. I started using that to get around at work which increased the amount of walking I was going. GEICO offered fitbits to all the employees at a discounted price and I was using that to record my progress. When I first got it I was walking about 500 steps a day. After a month I was up to 3,000 steps a day. It is recommend to walk 10,000 steps a day. I wasn't very close to that, but I was still impressed by the progress I made in a month. My actual goal was to get rid of my cane by the wedding, which is August 8th. I had to increase my strength in order to even think about that and I needed to walk in order to gain that strength.
I am not doing too bad with my goal. I started using the walker more and by the time I left GEICO which was May (I will talk more on that later) I was using my chair just inside GEICO, my walker to walk in and out of GEICO, my cane for public a places and nothing at home. I continued using my chair while at work because the place was too big to walk around in. The bathroom was not close to where I sat. The cafeteria was on the bottom floor and I worked on the second. Nothing was really close and I was causing too many aches to my muscles to continue that. So I chose which would be the best fit for my progress and that was it.
After I left GEICO my walking increased dramatically. Sadly this caused a set back as I have a stress fracture now in my right foot. It started out as a muscle pain on the bottom outside of my foot, which transferred to my ankle and now a spot on the top middle is in a lot of pain. The muscle on the right is gone and so it the pain in the ankle. Those were just pains getting use to the new position and use of the muscles. The sensitivity on the top of my foot is still sore. It takes longer for a bone to heal. I have not had this checked by an x-ray yet, but I am pretty sure that is what it is. I have it wrapped and am babying it and it seems to be getting better. I am upset by this but it makes sense. I went from sitting at a computer or wheelchair for eight hours a day to walking and moving constantly. I felt a little pain like this when I was increasing my walking for the first time and had to take a step back by using the chair at GEICO. The pain was from my foot getting use to the increased use and pressure on it. My foot was so flat and walking on it is so much more in a new position it has never been. I guess it was inevitable that something would happen. I didn't have much warning this time and I was so busy doing other stuff I just kept going...
The reason I don't want an x-ray is because I was in the hospital two weeks ago and got more radiation that week than I have had in three years. I will talk more on that later as well.
I might not make my goal by the time frame I had set. This OK as I am happy with the progress I have made. I will not however accept my progress and stop working at it. I will eventually not need that cane it is just a slower process than I would have wanted.
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