Free Pass Revoked

After I was happily promoted to bear weight, and after I tooled around enough with my cane to wear out its tip, I mostly remained on two crutches while trying to (re)learn to walk. I developed what could be called an "imaginative" gait pattern which I thought I could practice my way out of as I became stronger. Thrilled with my weight bearing allowance and jauntily hobbling about (in possession of new powers like super slo-mo dog walking), I was only dimly aware of pain in my foot (of all things) on the affected side. I figured after three months of touchdown only with that foot, I still had stretching and muscle (re)building to do. And that's we've been doing in PT; step ups, leg press, stretches and gait training.

Then, last Friday, a week after the Big Promotion, the PT says to me, "What are you doing?" I say, "I'm walking," or a reasonable facsimile of walking, at least. She says "Why are you leaning over like that and why are you not pushing off with your right foot?" I say, "Um, 'cause that hurts my foot," realizing suddenly how much in fact it hurts my foot, when I bear the full weight of a "normal" step. Not hurting my hip or quadriceps (so much). I'm not so good with recognizing pain I'm told so this is not shocking to me.

We then discussed getting an x-ray upstairs to rule out a foot fracture. So, I get an x-ray of the foot. Which suggests more imagery is required but that a fracture cannot be ruled out. The foot's still a bit swollen after all this time; everyone had attributed that to stuff settling out of the hip injury. The surgeon says to discontinue all PT until he can check it out.

Remembering back to my crash (documented earlier here), it seems possible that the fall/impact while clipped in created a complication with my foot. The last time I saw someone fall like that into rocks and stay clipped into his pedals, the result was an open (compound) forearm fracture. Someone constructed him a sling out of a hydration pack and a spare tube and we walked him out to the road ("Keep talkin' to me, keep talkin' to me!"). We called an ambulance from a nearby house.