Second Week at Home: The New Routine and Progress

Life is getting into a routine at home with regular exercise, walking laps around the house, regular good food and restful sleep.  I am ambling around on crutches with significantly more confidence.  The next walking goals are to increase the distance that I am regularly walking and get down to one crutch around the week of my surgical review.  Review is next Monday and I am moving towards having enough strength in my hip stabilisors to achieve this later in the week.  It's likely that my right side will be the stronger one as it has been throughout this process. There is still work to do and a lot can be achieved in a week, so I am hopeful.

The major change that I have seen physically in the last couple of days is the ability to lift each leg up from the bed into the air while laying down.  So far it's only about six inches from the bed though it is a good start and a massive difference as I haven't had the strength in my hip flexors to lift much more than half an inch until Monday of this week.

The other functional goals that we have as part of the first phase of Project Awesome are to increase the amount of stairs that I practice daily and to eliminate compensation vaulting on stairs.  The compensation occurs as I don't have the hip flexor strength to easily lift my leading leg to place it on the upper stair and have been compensating by lifting the heel of the grounded foot to gain the additional height to clear the step.  Though I have the strength and balance to do this reasonably safely, it isn't the best way to climb stairs.  I have to practice lifting each leg higher while activating all of the required muscles.  It requires concentration and a huge amount of energy to clear each step when leading with the right.  The left is still about an inch off and I am still practicing as I don't want the progress to stop on the weaker leg.

I also need to increase the amount of outings that I do each week to improve my confidence and stamina.  I am still wary of being out in public and the only way that will change is by getting out there.  I need a bit more practice so that I am soon at the point where I am comfortable going to the pool and starting hydro.  I'm probably still a few more weeks off that.