First Steps!

On the same day that I removed the cast, I went for physiotherapy. My physiotherapist was a sweet girl who was very friendly and chatty and very comforting. She made me do these exercises that made the swelling in my foot go down and made my leg look less bruised.

Only the last exercise was terrible. She made me put my left ankle over my right knee and that was quite painful. The pain was not sharp but it reminded me of the pain I experienced when I first fell down.

She told me that I had to repeat these 4 exercies she showed me 3 times a day. So I did and in a week's time I was back again.

At home, when I first attempted the fourth exercise, I could not do it. I had to hold my toes down for 30 secs, 10 times, but I could not even complete a cycle. In the end, I swopped it around and did the 4th exercise 1st and continued with the rest. After two days, the pain settled and I was able to do the routine in the order that I was supposed to.

After a week, I was back in the "gym" again and this time it was rather crowded but my physiotherapist was as sweet as ever. She showed me four new exercises. The last of which included me standing on one leg. My left leg. I thought I heard wrongly. But it was. I was to stand on one leg, my left leg, for five minutes. So I stood. For five minutes.

After that she got me to cycle for about 10 mins, and I cycled 2.1 km, I could have reached home... It felt good just being able to cycle again. Felt normal. And this time when I picked the crutches up again, I felt as though I could walk on my own.

So at home, naughty as it felt, I took my first baby steps without the crutches and yeap, I felt like a baby, but I was walking. ok.. ok... more like waddling, but I was getting from here to there without crutches!

Back to the "gym", while I was doing the exercises, I saw another guy walking along in crutches too, and I noticed that his crutches looked more complicated than mine. It was because he also had a fractured arm. So his left arm was in a kind of a support frame on the crutch and his left leg was in a plastic cast. He looked so young too - almost the same age as me. I was just thinking that it's true what they say - don't tell people your problems. half of them don't care and the other half are just happy it did not happen to them.

I mean, I felt sorry for that guy, but a larger part of me was glad that I was not in that situation and well, ok, it did put my situation into perspective.