The previous three weeks have been fairly uneventful with progress. The slow progress and monotony of day after day stuck inside and hours upon hours on this couch has been wearing on me. There has been progress with my ankle, however, at this point it is slow and probably will be slow until I can increase my active WB in a regular shoe. Based on the doctors protocol, if my CT scan looks good, I should be able to be in a regular shoe full-time in another couple weeks.
In the past couple weeks I have decided to get things moving. I am working to be more aerobically active to get my endurance ready for returning to work next month. I have been trying to get away from wearing my comfy workout clothes everyday so I can get a good feel for how my body has changed and feels in my other clothes. Naturally, with being on my back for so many hours in the day for this many weeks, I have lost a bunch of muscle and replaced it with fat on my skin and bones. I initially lost weight, but have been religiously working out with the weights at therapy and been putting back on the muscle, which is also increasing my total weight. With the increased aerobic exercises as well as cutting out the "whites" (simple sugars) I am getting toned back up and back to my healthy lean to fat ratios. Unfortunately, diet and exercise with so many activity restrictions yields pretty slow progress. But just like my ankle progress, once I can get back to "normal" activity, things will get back to "normal" soon. I am hoping to find a new and better "normal" with this new ankle.
In the meantime...mother nature is making the couch cozy. This winter has been more reminiscent of what I remember growing up. There has been so much panic over news and social media over it, but I think we have just been lucky over the past several winters and have not had the steady arctic conditions like we have this year and we have simply forgotten that this is what winter is. From what I see on the news, it looks like the weather is going to begin to warm up just in time for me to get out and enjoy it. To keep me focused on the forward momentum, I have set up my indoor greenhouse and got out my seeds and supplies to start some plants indoors. Today I am going to start some tomatoes and pepper plants. Watching my little sprouts grow will be a nice Spring and cabin fever reliever!
