Foot/Ankle Surgery/Recovery – Doing What Your Therapist Says

Posted by DetectiveEstes in Uncategorized      No comments

May
22

This is a documentation of a recovery from Post Tibia Tendon (PTT) surgery to a left foot & ankle on January 14, this year.  Until this past Friday, May 9, this recovery was only about strengthening the ankle.   The surgery, subsequent therapy and ultimately purchase of orthotics were all done by The Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Center.  They are located at   2922 Telestar Court, Falls Church, VA 22042, phone – 703.584.2040.  My surgeon was Dr. Daniel Cuttica.

This is a few comments on obeying the therapist.  About May 15, at one of my physical therapy sessions, I asked my therapist, Matt, about the possibility of returning to competitive rifle shooting.  I described the activity.  Now, Matt knew I also shoot shotgun in a trap league on Wednesday evenings.  I’ve been doing this from April after this surgery and there has been no issue from Matt.  I, had a couple problems with balance, but Matt had no issues with me shooting a shotgun after this surgery.  So I figured there would be no problems shooting rifles either.  WRONG!!!  After hearing the description of the activity Matt canceled me from rifle shooting until I received my new orthotics.  In fact, Matt commented that when I was at the rifle range for any reason I should wear my ankle brace!  The reason for this is that I’ve been running rifle matches since my surgery even though I’m not competing.  Matt advised that meant I’m standing a good bit as well as working my ankle at odd movements including side to side and the brace will assist me in that endeavor.

Matt also scared the hell out of me saying that though unlikely, long standing coupled with unusual movements could possibly cause the ankle to collapse.  Just what someone who suffered through surgery and subsequent pain following surgery wants to hear!  I agreed to use the brace.  Now, move forward to May 18.  I ran a rifle match.  I figured since I was running the match, I could sit more than stand so I didn’t wear my brace….yes, folks sometimes Roger is dumb.   I forgot that included with the actual shooting there is the morning set up.  This includes target set ups which are heavy.  After the set-ups, I stood a great deal of the time……Until just before the match was over.  Suddenly I was hit was an awful sharp pain in my foot, right underneath as well as the top right.  I had this awful sinking feeling that my ankle had collapsed.  (Thinking back on it now, I think it would have been excruciating pain if that had happened but this was still very painful).  Later, after the match was over, I sat down with another shooter and had some coffee.  Within 10 minutes my foot had no pain, and no further pain came on.  So I became unworried.

Fast forward to May 19th.  I had physical therapy.  Following that extreme exercise on my ankle, I then mowed the yard.  Again, did not wear the brace.  About 3/4 way through the mowing, I removed the grass bag off the mower to take it to the trash.  Suddenly I was hit with such a sharp pain in my entire left foot that I looked to see if I had ran a nail through it!  Not only was the pain intense, but my entire leg muscle weakened so that I had to stand on my right foot to stay upright!  Fortunately some stairs were right there.  I hobbled on over and sat down to wait for my foot to get better with the pain.  It never did get completely pain free.  I figured it was time to stop playing around with this brace stuff and put it on when I was doing strenuous activity on the foot.  Duh!! I believe that’s what Matt said.

I told Matt about these incidents of pain and he said back to me one of my own fav sayings: “I’d say that was a self-curing problem Roger”.  And indeed it was.  I have now learned – Never, Ever, ignore my therapist!