Apparently I *might* be trusted...

...enough to have the cast off a tiny bit early and the air-boot on.  Maaaaybe on 9th January at my next check-up.  (And apparently the cast is only there to protect things if I fall over!  Seriously!)

So I went to have check-up number two today on the ankle; make sure the wound looks good etc.  And the etc. was the best bit.  All of the dressing came off, my leg and foot got a goos wash and a massage with moisturiser.  Oh *man* did it feel good to have air on the skin, and then the cool cleansing spray and a good ol' massage with E45.  The silicone wound cover is also gone and replaced with a more normal steri-pad thing and the excess thread and knots on the stitches have been cut off and the remaining thread will dissolve over time.

What was a bit unpleasant was when I noticed that, because the joint has been immobile for two weeks, it's really hard to control it and my toes too.  I can crudely wiggle my toes, but I used to be able to pick things up with them, point my big toe and spread them all out wide.  Can't do any of that any more and that's only after two weeks!  (Just have a look down the right side of this at the pictures of my right foot - the OK one.  I can do none of these movements with my left foot one at the moment.)

It was also really hard to move the ankle joint.  You know when you do a completely new movement with a joint in the gym and it's kind of juddery?  That's how my ankle is now when I simply flex or extend it.  Which I'm trying not to think too hard about as that will lead to feeling down about it all again.  And that's really not what I need.

On top of the cleaning, moisturising and massage was a bit of (really quite gentle) joint manipulation which felt weird and uncomfortable.

It was really hard to move my ankle in any direction at all.  It felt odd, uncomfortable, difficult, weird.  I thought it'd feel nice to be able to move but it was just difficult which was disappointing.

Anyway, given that I bothered to ask as there's no way I'd've been told had I not asked, I've now got slightly more of an idea of what the next steps are.  Because, apparently, I seem like I can be trusted I may be allowed to have the cast off before the 6 weeks are up and have an air boot for convenience and comfort as long as I don't walk on it - I'm even allowed take the cast off as long as we're OK to get it back on again ourselves, so I may do that every coupe of days or so, just to wiggle the joint a bit.  But then at the 6 week mark I'll be allowed to start walking with the air boot (likely with crutches too) and it'll take a while to get back to normal walking, via physio and cycling and stuff.

It'd just be nice to have it laid out in a plan with rough time-scales so I know what's going on.  This is one of the things I noticed the last time (when I had my collar bone done) is the utter lack of anyone telling you what's going on or what's supposed to happen and in what order and here we are again.  Hey ho, it's not like it's a life-threatening situation.  But I do kinda need to know to organise myself and my life.  I've already postponed starting my new job so it's after the cast comes off, except I don't actually have a date for that other than "six weeks after surgery".  And after what the consultant said today, it looks like I'll still be relying on a rucksack for a good few weeks to carry anything around if I'm still on crutches even if only for a bit of support, but at least I'll be a lot steadier and able to put both feet on the floor.

So I'm back in on 9th January and fingers-crossed that the consultant will be in a good mood and on the side of letting me have the cast off on that day.  It's only a week early but it'd be awesome.

What to do.

Warning: graphic description of minor wound below.


My thumb is really rather sore.  I'm dosing up on ibuprofen a few times a day and making sure it's not going black/green/purple once a day so far.  It hurts all down the inside of my thumb, up into the knuckles at the base of my index and middle fingers and up the inside of my index finger.  Pressure on the back of the nail, or near the tip on the soft side, is a big no-no.  So I'm pretty much keeping it straight and not using it for anything.  Which means that many day-to-day tasks are annoying and fiddly, but it also means I have no grip in my left hand.  Which means that cycling will be tricky, never mind the fact that changing down on the chain ring uses a thumb operated trigger that's as stiff as all hell even with a fully functional thumb.  And gripping anything in the gym... also a problem.  I can't grip a bar or a handle with any meaningful strength, even pulling up my tracksuit bottoms is difficult!

So, if it's still not great tomorrow, I should probably take it down to the minor injuries clinic near work to see if there's anything can be done to help it heal more quickly.  When I was picking the seed out of the flap of skin on the soft side of my thumb, I did notice that it looks like the knife blade sliced through the thumb nail at the back at a quite shallow angle, through the skin and flesh on the tip of my thumb to just below where the nail and skin part at the tip of my thumb for about 2/3rds the width of my thumb.  The flap of skin glued itself with blood, up onto the inside of my nail so I had to peel it off the inside of my nail (after picking out the chilli seed with a needle) and push it back down to join the flesh where it should be before dressing the wound.  It bled an awful lot once I'd taken the pressure off the flap, so I'm pretty sure that if there was no nail covering it, I'd be looking at a few stitches for sure, but due to the nail you can't really see the damage very well and the rest of the nail, along with some tightly wrapped zinc oxide tape, is holding most of it in place.

Thumbs.  Quite important to most stuff we humans do, it turns out.

I think I need some more tea and Christmas cake.

*whimper*

I've been... Busy.

Lots of stuff happened related to being at work lots of hours a day for several weeks and some stuff I might talk long after it loses the power to make things interesting.  I managed to fit in a couple or three gyms in per week, but dropped off the cycling.  I've eaten for England, but not got heavier so I'm just waiting for it to hit me.  I've totally failed to see my trainer at all so have been evolving and mixing and matching new stuff into my gym routine to stop it stagnating toooo much.

Christmas has been pretty good.  Just the two of us.  My first ever Christmas meal I've cooked at home for us and the turkey just keeps giving.  My main present was a pair of stunning Global knives, a sharpening tool and a magnetic knife holder.  And this evening I christened the knives making turkey curry, chopping and slicing garlic, onions, carrots, peppers, chillies, roast turkey...  Literally christened one of the knives whilst chopping the chilli peppers and sliced through my thumb nail nearish the top, into the top of my thumb at an angle and embedded a chilli seed into the cut before I'd even noticed the knife had cut.  Those knives are -sharp- and incredible.  And chilli seeds in cuts really rather smart, I can tell you.  And the very best thing you can do with a cut like that is press on it really hard until the bleeding stops, rather than picking about in the slice with a sterilised needle to get a chilli seed out.

We went to the gym earlier and I hauled out an old routine as my latest one is well over 2 months old and really too stale to be any good now.  So I looked back to a routine several iterations back and cranked up the weights somewhat:-

• Squat and swing with 24kg (like a kettlebell swing) - 3x10
• core pendulum swings (lying on the floor, legs up, swing legs/rotate hips) - 3x10 each side SUPERSET A
• Lunge with single arm swing opposite arm to knee (same side arm and leg working) 8kg dumbbell - 3x10 each side SUPERSET A
• clean and press 30kg barbell- 3x10
• reverse lunge with row (cable machine) 15kg - 3x10 SUPERSET B
• side plank with row (8kg) hold plank throughout - 3x10 SUPERSET B
• leg raise with press - 20kg ViPR - 3x15 SUPERSET C
• Pressups on ViPR - 3x5 SUPERSET C

But.  I really need a new routine.  Hopefully I'll be able to get the trainer at the local gym that I'd prefer.  Committing to a set time during the week just doesn't work for me any more.  So training sessions really need to be at the weekend and that means going to the gym near home.  Which, thankfully, is cheaper too.