I can see why most people who blog about their ankle injuries don't have much between their first surgeon's follow up and the second one. You hit this no man's land where you've seen a good amount of progress and there's just not that much else to do other than count down until your next follow up when you actually get cleared to start physio.
My dorsiflexion is still improving - I'm able to get past neutral now, which is great to see. Plantarflexion is also improving but the difference between my left and my right is still quite pronounced. My circles clockwise and counter-clockwise are going pretty well. Inversion and eversion are still the ones with the most minimal mobility, which isn't that surprising. There's a very tight spot on the medial side when I try for eversion. It's just below where my incision is, so I'm wondering if it's part of the ligament that I had repaired. It's part of a bigger section of swelling right around the incision that I'm trying to work on. The area around my lateral incision feels way less weird, although just below my malleolus I'm pretty sure I can feel a screw. Judging by my x-ray, it would be a spot that makes sense, as it's the edge of the plate as well as the end of one of the screws point upwards.
I've taken to sitting on the floor for a while every day as I discovered that my left leg (where I injured my hamstring in November) has still not regained range of motion and in particular, my quad won't naturally shut off when I have my legs extended in front of me. I also still can't hit terminal knee extension (with your legs in front of you, when you flex the quad, you should be able to get your heel off the ground). I can flex my quad now, which is an improvement from before and if I help things along by actively trying to raise my heel, I can have some success, but it doesn't come without pain. On the right, I can hold terminal knee extension with no problems; whereas on the left it causes some solid discomfort. It's also not the most pleasant thing to come out of just basic extension - as I sit on the floor, my leg relaxes such that my quad turns off, but when I come out of extension and back into flexion it's super stiff and annoying. My hope is that by the time I'm coming back from the ankle, the hamstring will also be happyish.
I did 8k in 1,000m intervals on the ski-erg a couple days ago. That was fun. I've been very, very curious about my heart rate while ski-erging and I've been wanting to pick up a new HRM/strap for a while now, so I grabbed a Schosche Rhythm+ from MEC today. The strap goes on your forearm instead of around your chest. So yay, new toy to play with.
I'm inching closer to single-digit days before my follow up. Ugh, it can't come soon enough. Just let me start physio!
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