Pilates with a Disability

I went back to Pilates for the first time after spraining my ankle. It was kind of harder than i thought but still a success, I believe. Since most of it is done on a mat, I could still do quite a bit. I had to forego any of the exercises/poses on "all fours" position. The rest were doable. however, I realize that the cam-walker weighs about 5 pounds and that added quite a bit of weight to exercises where I had to lift my right leg and foot. My upper body was craving the stretching after using crutches for a few weeks. My left hip is also sore and feels a bit better now. I think because the cam-walker is like 2-3 inches high and if I wear a tennie runner on the other foot, my feet are different lengths and that throws off my walking. I wore a low heeled boot today on my left foot and that seems to be helping a bit.The only down side is that I am exhausted now. I think I will be going to bed soon!

I Am So Tired!

Okay, I have so much more empathy for anyone with a disability or injury. I am so pooped all the time. Every activity takes twice as long! Every time I have to walk to the car from my office my arms ache from using the stupid crutches. How do people do this for months? Please let me heal and dump these crutches soon. Of course, I say this, but I still cheat now and then and hobble around on my ankle which probably is not good for healing, but how else can you pick up the house or do laundry or anything while on crutches!! I finally broke down and agreed to have the doctor fill out paperwork to get temporary disabled parking for the next month. It is worth it just to cut my walk from the parking lot at work in half!

Ankle Update

I made my way into work today with my ace-wrapped ankle and my crutches and decided I did not feel the medical advice I was given was sufficient to last me 4 to 6 weeks! Walking from parking lot to the office on crutches took forever and the little ace wrap did not seem sufficient to protect me from further injury when i was trucking all over a huge hospital. After my first patient, I checked myself into the walk-in clinic and talked to the doctor on call. He was much more informative. Apparently, I probably tore a couple of my tendons on my ankle (I was advised we have 3 main tendons there.). I really will take 4 to 6 weeks to heal at the minimum and I will be wearing an ankle brace for quite a while, especially if I plan to keep hiking! He said the key to healing a sprain appropriately was to keep ankle at a right angle and avoid future twisting. So I got fitted into a "boot" to keep my ankle fixed in place. This did seem to help me walk a bit without the crutches and once it does not hurt to walk, I can lose the crutches. However, the boot is the biggest darn thing I have seen! It looks like it was made for Big Foot. I hate it but I hate the crutches more and hope it allows me to dump the crutches in a few days.

My First All Day Hike

Well back from my first all day hike and things did not go as planned. The day started out beautiful. The weather was clear and sunny. My daypack seemed full of important items yet was not that heavy. I was early to our meeting spot (Starbucks) and had time to get my Venti Nonfat Chai! The drive out to the fishbowls was long but uneventful. However, we neared the turnoff to find the actual road to the trailhead was closed (a fateful sign we ignored). It became clear that many of the trails were closed due to winter and the debate was on over where to go. One member of our group mentioned the McGill trail on Mt. Pinos and we arrived to the trailhead to find it looking open and clear.

We all unpacked and began to make our way onto the trail. At some point we ran into snow at various points on the trail. Unfortunately, this continued as we made our way up the trail until there was a lot of snow. That was when I began to have some problems. I slipped and fell a few times and eventually twisted my ankle. The remainder of the hike was on this injured ankle and that only contributed to the difficulty of hiking in the snow. Some of the snow was fresh and powdery. However, some was hard-packed and very icy. Most was on a steep grade. Some of my fellow hikers had trekking poles and they loaned them to me to help with balance. My ultimate conclusion was that my hiking boots may have been adequate for hiking, but were totally inappropriate for snow. I seemed to have no traction at all. Going up the mountain in snow was pretty bad. Going down in the snow with an injured ankle was worse. Pain was not too bad as i think the ice and cold helped make the area numb. However, being very vigilant about your foot placement, limping at times, and continued falls added to my exhaustion and the trip appeared to take forever. We arrived back to the cars around 1:30 p.m. I advised my buddies my ankle was done and I had no more energy for more, but some of our group was hell-bent on more hiking. Fate was with me when every trail they tried was closed! My carpool finally gave up and we headed back home.

My ankle was pretty swollen and beaten up by then so my husband drove me straight to urgent care after I returned home and I am the sad owner of a badly sprained ankle. I was sent home with some crutches and a lovely ace bandage.