A rainbow in my cloudy days!

This is an extension to my first blog post about ankle injury (Roller Coster Ride) and in the current post, I am tapping the first phase of my rehabilitation.

After 4 weeks from surgery, physiotherapy started. With all interest to recover faster, I took home visits on daily basis. This continued for 3 weeks to gain mobility in ankle and I got into full weight bearing and started walking with no support (Yay! a good sign).

However, few lifestyle changes had to happen due to edema surrounding ankle joint and other complaints (SIGH!).
– Had to switch to sketchers leaving my floaters and boots aside. My swollen ankle won’t fit into any of these 😐
– Had to rely on cabs/autos leaving bike home. This was killing me from inside as I love riding bikes.
– A big stop to Boxing, trekking and other activities. I was dead from inside and felt like caged.
– Had to switch to kurtas and loose pants 🙈 as I can no longer carry Denims/shorts due to swollen ankle which leaves me only discomfort.

And many more..

After all, it’s life. Whatever happens in life will have a reason. May be life is teaching me to be more patience and to deal more critical stuff, so I can handle the later phase of it? Or is it a karma I have to deal with? Sometimes, we are left with no answers. Finding humor in little things happening around, was pushing me to deviate from all disturbances and focus on remedies that would help my recovery.

Hold on! All stories will be with twists and turns to make it interesting. I saw a freeze in my recovery after 2.5months. I was shattered and started investing my time in search of all available sports specialists in Hyderabad. But no luck. A great disappointment! But Heart and mind are not listening and still looking for hope. The logic I used to reason myself is when “an athlete with such injuries comes back to profession in 1-1.5 years time as sports is his/her bread and butter, why can’t a common man like me be back to normal?”. I had two choices, search for the right doc no matter what it takes me to or be happy with what I got and move on. I know, life made me stubborn and don’t wanna give up on my leg this early. These were the days searching for that one right doc (A hope to recover), hours of spending on web to know about doctors and read rehabilitation blogs and videos. Few of below added little progress till the time I found the right doc.
– Treadmill: this helped me to improve distance between legs and little bending of knee while walking. Start with low speed till the legs catches up the technique and focus on each step. In a week’s time, I got into a speed of 5.5 and elevation of 3.
– Cycling: I tried cycling to analyze how I can do movement with pedals being in 80 degree position.
– Cross trainer: Should be very cautious with this equipment as it leaves stress on the joint when you try to do the movement without raising heels.
– Writing letters in air using the ankle movements. One round of A-Z in upper case and another round of a-z in lower case; Walking in sand and in water

(all credits goes to web and YouTube videos)

– Toe and heel raises, toe and heal walking, straight line walking etc were all followed as advised by doc.
– Prolonged standing and walking. As I have to cook and pack my boxes daily, this helped me to train leg in prolonged standing. However, dinners used to be tough after a long and hectic work day 😐
– Wiping water from floor with cloth. This helped me a lot to learn to apply strength and part of inversion/eversion movements.

Sometimes, hacks works 😅

Five months passed by and figured out a Sports rehabilitation hospital in Kerala and initiated a conversation. All credits to my friends who were equally putting their efforts to find doctors. I was supposed to leave Kerala in couple of weeks and luckily got a reference for another doc who can see me in Hyderabad. With no delay, I immediately placed a call and figured out doctor would be visiting Hyderabad in a week’s time (yay!). The only wish I had is, this should turn out as a best lead I ever had all these days. Fingers crossed and with neutral heart took my first consultation. To my surprise, she is the first ever doc who believed me when I said I can’t feel my calf muscle (Nothing can be matched up to this feeling, was on cloud9 already?😅). With only four sessions I could see a noticeable progress in terms of ranges, mobility, numbness etc. Finally, a ray of hope ignited in my doomy days and was happy that my efforts to find a right doc didn’t go in vain. The following month, I followed the Doc to Mumbai for further therapy. When you are a traveler, nothing can stop you from traveling and always finds a reason to travel 😅 The same happened with me 😂 Immediately wrapped the bandage and became a Ninja to travel 😊

The Mumbai time is filled with two sessions/day lasting for 4-5hours. Underwent series of treatments from hands on therapy, needling, cupping, scar tissue needling, exercises etc. In life, sometimes you get into a situation where you have to go with your gut feeling and trust someone. I made a decision to go with scar tissue needling as I valued my doc opinion over anything else. At that moment, and all the struggle I have been through, I felt sensible to give it a try (though my friends asked me not to go with). I was lucky to find a doc with so much passion and dealing with patience. One quality impressed me to the core is her dedication and to find out the ways to treat me. Yes, she is the doctor who became rainbow in my cloudy days.
Hopefully, with other few months of therapy I’ll be back on my feet conquering myself again!

Never loose hope and never give up. Life is a challenge, accept it to figure out solution and it will only make you stronger. More the experiences you gain in life more stronger you become🤘Though life kicks you, it shows a ray of hope when you don’t give up. Find ways to be happy and feel motivated.

PS It’s been a long and stressful eight months from the incident and still counting days and hoping to be back soon. Check out the space for the final blog about the progress in next few months and hopefully, I should be able to run or take a come back bout 😀