One step forward, two steps backwards

The road to recovery is full of detours.

I have not updated in so long because there hasn’t been much progress to share. Instead I have regressed a bit since August. After my last post I did a one mile walk and was working on walking independently. Everything was going really well until I started to sprain my ankle repeatedly. Even though the surgery on my way Achilles loosened my ankles, my right foot still turned in and made it difficult to walk properly without straining it.

Me, learning how to walk independently

I went to the orthopedic surgeon who recommended surgery once again to fix my foot from turning in as well as the toes on my left foot from curling in. So I had a surgery on October 3rd, and was in a cast for 6 weeks. Once the casts came off, my left foot was still turned in a little and my toes still curled in a bit. The orthopedic surgeon said that it was because of the signals my brain is sending to my feet and that this was about as good as it could get. Till today, I’m not walking around as much to prevent spraining my ankle again.

Apparently, because I wasn’t walking for a couple of months and not holding a walker, my hands started to tighten and the spasticity in my hands increased. So whatever progress I had made with my hands also regressed and I am not able to control my hands. My therapist says that I can’t really do much about that, the spasticity is too strong to overcome. I just have to keep trying to work my hands.

So that’s where I am about 21 months after my injury. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share this because I feel like it makes me look weak, but I realized that it’s all a part of the recovery and eventually I will bounce back.