Today was Mia Rose’s first visit to the PT since she started wearing the sneakers and orthotics. She had a good session, got new exercises to work on her own (squats single leg and two leg, RDLs, big toe exercises to get some of the small muscles in her arch more active etc), and got instruction in how to correct her gait so that she is now walking with much less of a limp. She had been walking in the boot for so long her steps had become short and choppy with a bit of a swing from the hip on the left side. Her PT told her to take longer steps really focusing on squeezing her glutes with each step and leading with the front of her hips. Within just a few seconds that dramatically improved her gait and reduced her limp to almost nothing. I will try to grab video later today to show the difference.
Physically Mia Rose is doing extremely well with her injury healing ahead of the typical timeline. She has little to no pain even when she is up and about doing lots, and the rest of her body is stronger than ever. But, since the purpose of creating this blog is to help others who are traveling this road to recovery from a lisfranc injury, I can’t just talk about what is going so well…I have to acknowledge that mentally and emotionally this has been a grueling process to say the least.
We are both pretty exhausted by the seemingly never ending medical appointments between PT, follow-ups with the surgeon, and visits to the chiropractor to address back pain from being on crutches and then walking in the boot for many weeks. We are typically going to 3 appointments a week to some combination of medical professionals. Both of us are very anxious to get to the point where she will not have such frequent visits! Between the medical visits, her schoolwork, my job, and her practices it feels like we never stop and the injury and recovery process are constantly front and center in our life. After the screws are removed on February 16th, I’m hoping that things will settle down quite a bit in that regard. Although the long term big picture seems to look very positive at this point, in the day to day it can be difficult to stay positive. It is definitely a daily (sometimes hourly especially early on) conscious choice to stay positive and focus on how far she has come in the past 11 weeks. When we look at her progress it is easier to appreciate how well she is doing. We have daily conversations about the little things that are better each day to help us really see and focus on what it good. Early on that was things like going 5 hours without needing a pain killer instead of 4 the day before. Now it is things like being able to dramatically reduce her limp with just a small change from the PT, being able to do one more leg lift or connecting one more skill in her bar routine for the first time since she got injured. I highly recommend doing this as it helps you to focus on the positives that are there but could easily go unnoticed and being able to see progress is so important to knowing that you really are recovering.
All of that said, we continue to take the long view and know that everything she is doing now (and everything she is not doing per doctor’s orders) will ultimately lead to her being fully healed with her foot ready to support her for a lifetime and with her back to the sport she loves while also being stronger than ever. That’s the”sliver lining” that we focus on and are grateful for every day.
A Gymnast's Lisfranc Recovery Journey 