Frustrated to say the least, I’ve been full weight bearing for 2 months without boot or crutch but still walk like my ankle is broken. I have shooting pain in the front of the ankle whenever I walk so that I can’t step normally. The side effect is that my knee tries to help by hyperextending a little with each step, causing wear and tear to the knee.

Pt 2x a week, had to change pt because the last one was way too conservative, would not manipulate the ankle, just had me doing gentle exercises. I can do those myself, what I can’t do is get the tib & fib to loosen up or the calcaneous to flex or the tibia to glide over the talus. That’s what my new pt is doing. She gets the whole mess down there to click and clack and flex and loosen up. The goal is to break down scar tissue, and get the joint to move and we are making progress, albeit very small progress.

A big problem for me is the psychology of all this. There is the two-part sadness of day-to-day limitations, coupled with the long term doubts of ever returning to normal. I fear there will be more surgeries ahead as well.

I tell myself that many people get hurt much worse than me and I should be grateful for where I am at but the reality is I can’t comprehend anything but my current situation. I feel very bad

for folks who get hurt worse for sure and there’s nothing ruling out that I won’t get hurt worse in my life from another accident. All I can do is try to stay positive day to day.