My Ankle is Healing

My six week broken ankle checkup yesterday, which was actually seven weeks out, went well!

Before I left for my appointment, I asked the kids to go to the bookshelf and bring me a book to take along with me.  They brought quite a collection for me to choose from!
Read-To-Me Bedtime Stories
The Norton Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism
Simplicity Halloween Sewing Pattern Catalog
and What to Expect - The Toddler Years

As it turned out, I was the last patient to check in for the day and there wasn't a soul in the place. I was in and out fairly quickly. No time to read! They sent me straight to Xray. I posed for my lovely photos and again was thrilled that I didn't have to wait. Back across the hall to the doctor's office and they put me in a room right away.

The nurse popped in and said "Do you have any pain?"  I said, "Yes." Without a word, she left. Ok.

The xrays are electronic, so the doc was already staring at my bones on his computer screen, all zoomed in and everything. He did that for a bit, then walked across the hallway to the little room I was in and took a look at my ankle.

He squeezed my ankle and asked me if it hurt! YES!!! And hitting my head on the ceiling hurt a bit too! Holy!

He said I have had significant muscle loss. The muscles are just gone, so I will need physical therapy. What took six weeks to disappear will take months to come back if I work hard at building them back up. Great.

The piece of bone that I broke off of the tip of my tibula is attaching itself back on in the correct position. Yippee! The doc showed me on the xray, and he told me that it was such a weird break. He said that usually a break like mine happens on the other side of the bone or higher up on the bone. I got lucky though because if I would have broken off a bigger piece of the bone or if the break was on the left side of the bone tip, then I would have had surgery. The structure of the ankle would have allowed the piece to slide out of position. But, where it was, being an odd place, turned out to be good because the broken piece stayed in place and is growing a bridge and reconnecting itself. Cool!

I'm not a fan of having surgery.

He said I can start limping around and putting a little bit of weight on it as I hobble around. Optomistically, I should be able to toss out the crutches in a couple of weeks. And, I can get rid of the boot before the end of August. He said I can wear my regular shoes after that. I said, "I wear flip flops".  He said, "get some tenna shoes". I thought so.

As I was checking out, my cell phone rang and it was my husband. I just told him I was at the dr's office and I'd call him later, but it was enough to interrupt my train of thought and I left the dr's office without making my appointment for physical therapy. Whoops.

I called to make an appointment, but guess what, my insurance doesn't cover it at the same place where I'm seeing the doctor. That makes no sense! In fact, the doctor's office isn't sure where I can get physical therapy because my insurance isn't covering much. Ugh. I'm seriously hoping someone at the insurance company wakes up!  They're being ridiculous!

I'm so excited that I dodged surgery and I am healing well! I need to get off of these crutches and get back to my normal life. I'm not a runner, dancer nor an athlete, but I do need both of my legs in good health to keep up with the kids and live my life the way I do.  Looks like I'll be back on two feet soon! Yay!