So.. Almost a month without a post... Good God I am lazy.

Today was my sixth session with a physiotherapist. I thought about writing about the experience earlier on, but held back because 1) YES I am fucking lazy and 2) I really didn't want to sound pessimistic when I am unsure of the efficacy of the sessions. Frankly I came into this having a prejudice that physiotherapy is this long and arduous process that takes years and years to get me healed. But I have to say I am very impressed with my progress, the skill of my physiotherapist, and the process in general.

My sessions now, not including the first (assessment) session, consists of 3 parts:
1) The exercise part, which I am to perform a series of exercises to train my calf and foot muscles (and hence the tendons that connect them to my bones) so they are strengthened.
2) The stretching part, which I am to use these tools to stretch my ankle to regain much-needed flexibility to prevent further injury to the ankle and other parts of the body (especially the knee and the hip).
3) The therapy part, which helps healing.

The first few sessions I start on the health bike. The motion that I go through on the bike pedal basically consists of me pointing my feet forwards (downward stroke) and pointing up (upward stroke).. Then I graduated to the treadmill, so that I can regain my running capability. Now I can run at about 5.5 miles/hour with minimal pain.

The stretching part consists of stretching my ankle forwards-backwards and side-to-side. At first both directions hurt like a mofo, but now, just the forwards part hurt. Incidentally this stretching is done on unstable platforms (imagine you putting a foot on a flat board with half a ball on the bottom, you rocking in any and all directions) so that one's leg muscles are trained to improve stability, a skill sorely missed after ruining a whole lot of tendons in the ankle.

Finally the most interesting part is the therapy part.. I'll talk about it in a later post.