10 days on (it's quite whiney, sorry)

10 days on from the surgery and I'm riding the rollercoaster of emotion.  Well, not a proper rollercoaster as it's mostly feeling null or down.  Adding to the blue feelings is a bit of a cold which is the shit icing on the shit cake.

Thanks to MrTOTKat for the cheerful pot-cover for my cast.

You'd think being at home all day, not being able to get around much would be all like this...

You can't quite see the pool of dribble Charley has kindly left for me

But it's just miserable really.

Seeing as I can't put any weight on my left foot, and that it is encased in a lump of heavy plaster, getting around and doing anything at all is a pain and tiring.  Of course, the less I do now, the more I lose strength and fitness overall.  I'm being good-ish with my knee-pumping and toe-wiggling exercises, but not exactly doing them once an hour, every single hour.  I guess it's handy that my bedroom is on the 2nd floor, the loo on the 1st and 2nd floor and I'm mostly stationed on the ground floor of the house.  It means I do have to go up and down stairs a few times a day, which is some exercise (especially in going up on crutches and trying not to topple over backwards in the process).

The consultant gave me a bit of false hope straight after the operation, in that she said I might be able to have the cast off after 4 weeks and an air-boot to actually touch down on the floor with.  That would have made the first couple of weeks at my new job actually do-able in terms of getting around with confidence.  But she blew that hope away at the check-up appointment by saying that that's the theory, but she doesn't like to do it in case it's too soon for the repair to take that sort of load.

So, in the 10 days since the operation, I've been out of the house twice so far.  Once to get to the check-up appointment (and then on to dinner afterwards, which was bloody nice and gave MrTOTKat a break from all the cooking for one meal at least) and then once today to go for soup at the local cafe.  I hate feeling like I have no confidence in doing even the simplest and most basic thing at the moment; like going down the road all of 100m, or putting washing on (carrying a basket or anything remotely heavy while on crutches? *bzzzt*!), or carrying a cup of tea anywhere (has to be something with a sealed lid and then in a bag), or standing up for a couple of minutes (try standing on one leg with a 5kg weight around one ankle and that foot not allowed to touch the floor, and then try doing something like chopping vegetables at the same time) to do anything useful around the house, or picking up something smallish from the floor without falling over.  And I've got another 31 days of it to go before this cast comes off.  I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

It will be over soon though, in the grand scheme of things.  I just have to forget about getting gradually less and less fit and less and less strong and slowly putting on pound after pound as I've decided it's mentally less stressful to give in to things I fancy where I'd normally not, and then obviously fancy them more as I un-adapt from a very low carbohydrate diet.  And there will be a lot of work to do once this stage is finished.  And a lot of having to suck up starting from practically zero again with sport (I'll be allowed use a static bike once the cast is off), and then running after the 3 months from surgery is up.

[Yes, I do know there are many many people who are in far worse situations than me, but that does not invalidate my frustration and feeling blue for the reasons I am doing.]

[Ohgod, I've just realised I'll be able to have a proper bath in 31 days rather than sitting on a plastic stool in the shower - I can't bloody wait!]

All done!

ATFL repair and retinaculum reinforcement all done.  Under a local.  Apparently I'm not a great candidate for local anaesthesia.  Aside from scaring the poop out of people by my BP dropping to 80/50 with severe nausea, tinnitus, dizziness and muscle spasms after the injection, it turns out I'm a bit jumpy when people are poking about my innards, twanging bits of ligament and screwing bits of metal into bones.  So we won't do that again.

As you can see, I have a ridiculous cast on my leg.  It's lumpy and weighs a ton, but I guess there's no point making it neat as it'll come off again on Friday so the consultant can check the progress of the wound healing, and I'll get a new one put on.  And the same deal again the following week.

Instructions are; "Bed rest for 3 days. No weight bearing at all for 4 weeks and you absolutely must not get the cast wet.".  This means crutches all of the time and not even standing other than on the other foot only.  I'm really hoping that the consultant lets me have an air boot for a couple of weeks after that rather than continue with the cast, because then I'll be able to be a bit more mobile and that'll make getting to work at the new job a bit easier.  In the mean time, I have some exercises to do to keep the bloody flowing and the knee mobile, but that calf (and probably the thigh as well as I can't use the leg for any weight bearing) will be as weak as a kitten after that.  And I'll be bored witless. And unfit.