Michelle's unscheduled jaunt

Below, you can see the route that Michelle took on her unscheduled, unplanned, un-pre-meditated stroll.

As I wrote in yesterday's entry, I was getting ready to take Angel for a walk and Michelle decided to pick up and head on out with us to go as far as she felt like going. And, as you can see above, she went a pretty good ways. Where the line goes gray, that was about to the highest part of where we were going.  It was down-ish on to the distant end of the walk. Thus, it was downhill getting back to our house where the black line begins on the return stroll.

So, wow.  Gosh.  Progress.  It's been a lot of good days lately, after too many tough days.

21 July 2012: update

We are getting ready for Michelle’s second full week back at the office. Briefly summarizing the first week:  tiring. She was doing well on the half-days with me taxi-ing her in lunch-ish. Driving herself in on the usual commute schedule requires more preparation time, and additional tasks to complete before departure. It’s a different deal in a lot of ways.

We’re looking forward to the next consult on 10 August, figuring that there will be a better idea on how well she’s progressing. We both keep thinking about how she was told that the most recent x-rays of her right ankle (appearing elsewhere on this blog) don’t show signs of it every having been broken.

The other ankle, with the screws and the plate and the continued discomfort, that’s another story, and will be another story for years, I expect. She now has weather forecasting talents. Accuracy and specificity will improve as familiarity with the various sensations increases.

Earlier today, she went for something of an indoor stroll without using cane or walker, going from the den to the dining room and back, along with a few other places on the first floor. It was a cheerful accomplishment, but tiring. It’s very apparent that her left is not keeping up with her right, but we have to note that the right is wearing the air boot and that there’s some disparity in apparent local foot height from the floor. We’ve talked about other footwear choices that might balance out the disproportion.

Once this deal is behind us, I vote for high-tops. She’s not very keen on the idea. Robbyn suggests work boots, and Michelle is open for that option as long as I wear ‘em too.

It’s looking like a reasonable week for both of us. The dog misses having her around for the first part of the day, but he gets to see me at lunch. Being back on my usual lunch schedule is a big change, but I’m managing. We’ll see how it goes.

For now: Michelle’s getting better, not as quickly as she would like, but there is improvement, and the improvements are more apparent every day.

====================\\

So, naturally, 20 minutes after I posted the above part, needing to take Angel for a walk, Michelle joined us, figuring to go as far as she could and turn back when she had gone far enough. As it worked out, what with two stops to tell neighbors about recovery progress, she went a good long way up the hill and most of the way to the speed limit sign that’s been our walk-the-dog destination ever since we started walking the dog.

I shot some video of it on my cellphone, but I’m not data-agile enough to post it just yet. It’s a great example about how well she’s doing.

The SEVEN-WEEK update

The SEVEN-WEEK update of how it’s going with Michelle

IT WAS SEVEN WEEKS AGO TO-DAY THAT THIS CHALLENGE BEGAN.

Hey, got through yesterday, if you put any stock in that sort of thing.  Today has been a good-enough day.  She’s still got mobility issues that we’re dealing with.  Stairs and curbs are in issue.  Not keeping her foot up enough during the day is an issue.  Standing up is an issue.  Still, she can manage curbs and stairs, and she can stand up from a seated position.  It’s WAY better than what we were dealing with a week ago.  Impatience with how long this is taking is also an issue.  Needing to delay everything else going on to contend with all the issues is an issue.  It’s getting better, though.  Just not so quickly as we were both hoping for.

We drove down to Palmetto today, taking the three parakeets (some call ‘em budgies; I like that, but it’s not so widely recognized) down to Mom, after she expressed her interest in managing avian life and knowing that, without birds down there, sure enough there would be a comparatively small quadruped or two joining the local menagerie.

Going to sing Mass tomorrow for the second time, and the last time of the summer, what with this year’s choir season ending.  We’ll be back at the end of August, and Michelle should be down to just a brace on the left ankle by then.  We’re hoping, anyway.  And kind of expecting.

She starts back to work full-time Monday, after getting doctor permission to do so on Friday.  The half-days have gone well, but it’ll be good for her to have a whole day in the office to address those concerns.  It’ll take the focus off her own issues and give her cause to concentrate on business things.  It’s good for her to be at work.  It helps her get through the days. 

Handling the challenges

Michelle status is good, but not as good as she was expecting. She’s got mobility, but it’s slow mobility. She went out for a little walk last night, slowly down the garage-side stairs off the deck to look at the flowers, headed towards the mailbox as I took the dog for a walk, thought better of it part-way due to the driveway’s incline, headed back inside and on up for bed.

This morning, she walked down the stairs, one at a time. We’ve learned that the air boot was doing more for her right ankle than she realized. We’ll see how she’s doing tomorrow.

How about a few pictures?

Number 6 is where all the big-deal stuff happened, near where the plate and screws (316 stainless steel, I was told yesterday) and surgery happened.

The cast comes off.

The scar is healing very well.

Now, the air boot is on the left.

The whiz-bang yee-ha woo-wee 21st Century "sports brace" that's now on her right ankle.

And now it's this way.  Her next consult is on 10 August.  Maybe things will settle out better by then.

The 10 July Update

As promised through the earlier parts, the cast came off today and the air boot moved from her right ankle to her left ankle.  We'll go back on 10 August for another consult.

Michelle mentioned being told that her right ankle looks like it had never been broken.

I'll put up larger versions in a few days, along with excerpts from the notes I took today.  Right now, it's late, and it's been a long day.

Maybe just one more day of this

Today’s entry is brought to you by Arial Black .

Tomorrow afternoon, we'll get the 411 on the next part of our ongoing experience. After arriving a little after ten, we’ll go back in to meet with the orthopedist and get going on the cast removal. Once that's taken care of, we'll see what's next.

Probably, hoping, x-rays will confirm the expected level of healing. We'll get a splint put on her right ankle, move the air boot to her left, get some physical therapy input (I'll take some notes), and we'll head on out for some lunch.

Maybe she won't need any support from any of the supportive appliances to get around, or not so much support.  We'll just have to see.  Will the wheelchair and the knee scooter go back after tomorrow's medical consult?

I've arranged to take the day, so it's wide-open for me. I sure didn't want to contend with taking the morning to get her over there and then have to hustle back home to leave her off and go into the office. Thankfully, I'm ahead enough of what's going on to be in good shape, for one day, at least.

I sure would like to bring some pictures back so I can share how much better she’s doing now than she before this series of weeks began.  I can’t say enough how supportive everyone in our lives has been of Michelle and I both during this extremely disadvantageous situation.  We are both very thankful to one and all. 

Counting down single digits

Tuesday, 10 July, is the day we go in and find out the next step.  The plan is for the cast to come off her left ankle.  I expect that there will be some looking at it, and probably x-rays.  We would like to think that the air boot will move over to her left and that they'll put a splint on the right.  The further expectation is that she'll be permitted to walk, to put full weight on her left, for the first time since the morning on 19 May, just before she stepped off the next-to-last step down into our garage expecting to continue on her way to the car so we could go to breakfast. 
It didn't go that way.  Looking at the calendar, next Tuesday will be just over seven full weeks and maybe, finally, hopefully, she'll be allowed to walk.  It's what we've been looking forward to, even if it's not completely actually walking.