After a week of rubbish attempts at walking without my splint I finally got to see my physio. She confirmed that there is a slow progress with my range of movement in my knee (now at 40) but was concerned to see how wobbly I was on my crutches. The problem was that I was so scared of my leg giving way, I was trying to compensate with the rest of my body and holding myself way too stiff to make any decent attempt at walking.
She decided to try me out walking between parallel bar in the gym, which I managed surprisingly well, without panicking too! So from there she suggested I tried a walking (zimmer) frame until I build my confidence up a little more. This worked great and I was even able to walk with my brace let out to 90% ... I'd still been trying to walk with it locked until then!
I've been using the walker at home for 4 days now and have progressed from a stooping dithering wreck, to being confident enough to stand up straight and tall and take "real" steps, with one foot in front of the other, instead of mini shuffle steps. Today I actually sat at the table to eat a meal instead of having it on my lap, first time in 2 months! Best achievement of the week though has to be making it to the loo on my own ... time to start regaining some dignity at last!
The exercises are still very hard work and a few extras have been added. Now that I can sit with my leg to the floor I can do some heel slides from that position, and I also have a bolster for under my leg to try short leg raises when I sitting on my bed. I'm still not able to get my leg from bed/sofa to floor and vice versa without some help, but I guess as my confidence continues to build I will experiment with some ways to achieve this.
What a difference a week makes ... this time last week i was ready to give up and feeling very sorry for myself, ... this week I can see some of the light at the end of the tunnel ...even if it is a long way off yet.
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