(My) Progress

Walt Disney's vision of EPCOT / Progress City

A couple of days ago I stepped into the shower for the first time in 9 weeks.  NO! I don't mean I showered for the first time in 9 weeks, I meant this was the first time I stepped into shower.  I stepped ... I didn't crawl, kneel, shimmy, or otherwise contort my injured body into the shower, like I had to do the past couple of months because of my tibial stress fracture.

I'm progressing quite well with full weight bearing, seeing improvement every day over the past few days.  I'm able to stand on my injured leg now, wasn't able to do that last week.  Still tough to tiptoe, I feel it on the top of my left foot, but my ankle feels fine.  And yesterday my family and I had a normal outing in public for the first time in months ... dinner and a stroll in the mall.  I had my boot on and still hobbled with a cane.  But it feels good.

And at home -- I can walk around without a cane, still limping a bit, but so much better.  I can make coffee, carry my cup, put things away in the dishwasher, and move from sink to stove without doing some weird heel-toe rotation on one foot.  No crutches, no scooter!

Today I had a follow up with my awesome orthopedic podiatrist.  He said xrays looked good ... and there's good news:

-over the next 1-2 weeks I can transition to just wearing sneakers, and transition off the cane
-I can start upper body exercises while sitting
-when I get into sneakers with full unassisted weight bearing, I can start aerobic walking! (yes, not quite the long distance running I did, and what I wanted to do ... but at this point still awesome).
-In one month I can start riding a bike, and start doing weight training while standing
-In the meantime I can use a theraband for calf exercises

As to returning to running ... he did NOT say never.  He thinks it's possible to get back into running, but we would have to wait to see what the endocrinology workup shows.  If I'm cleared, then maybe I can do elliptical and running, but he said to wait.

That's fine.   At this point I can wait.  I just don't want to get injured again.  I want to stay healthy.
I had a bunch more tests done recently by my endocrinologist:
-MRI of the pituitary
-24 urine calcium
-24 urine creatinine clearance
-xyrine N-telopeptide
-serum osteocalcin
-serum histamine
-serum tryptase
-serum b-HCG
-homocystine
-estradiol

Disclaimer: at no point is any information on my blog a substitute for your own health professional's clinical judgement and workup for your own health condition.

So ... hopefully full-on exercise (without running) in one month.  That will take me to about mid-March, and well, I'm still registered for the Allstate NYC 13.1 Marathon at the end of March, and I can technically walk it ... but now I might just play it safe and DNS it.

It's ok.

This is progress.

credit to davelandblog.blogspot.com