Thankful

Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, I got the news from my physical therapist that I am now running about 1 week ahead of schedule on recovery. I walking almost normally now and am able to generate a decent amount of power with the injured muscle. So now I get to do some resistance work to continue building the muscle back up, and some light stretching. I am very happy about that and will probably get to add dead lifts back to my workout routine soon.

I went to karate class on Saturday (exempted from running or jumping, of course), and we learned a very cool technique for quickly bringing someone down by exerting pressure on the right point of their hand while twisting the wrist. It's amazing how little effort it takes. I have been practicing it on every victim I can find, ever since. :-)

not as bad as it looked

Positive news from today's physical therapy...Kevin revised his assessment of the injury down to a 20% tear (versus to 20-50% as he'd said initially). He was very happy with the mobility and level of strengh I am getting now at nearly two weeks. The muscle had basically shut down right after the injury, and that's what worried him and led him to estimate more of a tear. I am making good progress, but I am still looking at another 3 - 4 weeks to heal. Yay, I get a gold star for actually doing what I was advised to do. ;-)

Of course, I then had to ask whether I could quit wearing the Ace bandage, start using my exercise bike yet, etc. etc. Kevin just gave me a wry little smile and said, "you know, you've made such great progress so quickly, I want you to just keep doing what you are doing." He knows me pretty well after about 8 years of repairing various injuries, so I can tell he's trying to keep me from overdoing it. And he's right...I probably would, if he gave me any wiggle room.

Meanwhile, Cory has me using the weight machines and then picking up my feet off the ground to engage the core and further take weight off my injured leg. That made things challenging and interesting enough that I didn't miss my power lifts too much...yet.

hobbling along

I am happy to report that I am walking in a more normal fashion, though still more slowly than I'd like.

I came down with a cold early last week and by Friday, I had laryngitis. That was pretty much it for me - I thought, "OK, I can't walk, I can barely breathe, and now I can't talk either." So I crashed on Friday night, cancelled all my plans for the weekend, and hibernated. That was definitely the best thing for the cold, and all that rest helped my leg heal too. There's a lot less swelling and bruising than there was a week ago, and I'm sure that has a lot to do with easier walking. And it really doesn't hurt...that much. Of course, I am doing (mostly) what I was instructed to do, with resting, ice, etc. so that helps too. We'll see what Kevin says later this week when I go for physical therapy.

prognosis

This just in from my physical therapist: I have torn 20-50% of my soleus muscle, which is the larger calf muscle that's a bit deeper on the calf (as opposed to the gastroc, which is more external). That is pretty much what I thought had happened, and although this means at least 4 - 6 weeks of no power lifts, no running, etc. it's not nearly as bad as an achilles tendon rupture or a detachment of the muscle from the tendon, either of which would require surgery. I am very blessed that this injury wasn't worse; it easily could have been.

The treatment is physical therapy twice a week for at least a month, plus I am supposed to keep it elevated as much as possible, ice it 3 times a day, and do some mild stretching. My PT is using a laser to reduce swelling and move blood into the area, and short wave to speed healing. When he was diagnosing the injury, he asked me to quantify the level of pain in various parts of my calf. When he got to where the tear is (a couple of inches above the achilles), there is a lot of bruising from blood leaking from the tears, I said it was a 6 (on a scale of 1 to 10) and he said, "I would hate to see what your level 10 is". :-)

I can still work out - I did a nice back workout last night on the machines and some free weights - but my power lifts are out because of the strain they would put on the calf. And I got a "get out of jail free" card exempting me from cardio for a couple of weeks, which I can't say I mind. I will be able to use the stationary bike after a couple of weeks, most likely. The biggest challenge for me will be not getting frustrated at my impaired level of movement and reduced speed.

ouch

I had great plans for last weekend. I was going to do a killer back workout after karate practice. And then, in karate class, I injured my right calf. I haven't had it looked at yet, so I'm not sure exactly what the extent of the injury is. But here's what happened:

The sempai (higher belt) teaching the class had us doing some wind sprints after warm-up, which involved some hopping (not sure why that was supposed to help our skills, but whatever). I was a couple of hops away when it felt as though someone had kicked me really hard in the back of the leg, so much so that I actually looked behind me and said, "what the..." This was accompanied by extreme pain and the inability to walk normally on my right leg.

I had to sit out the rest of the class and then elevated and iced the calf as soon as I got home. So, I spent all weekend on the couch with the ice pack, hobbling around the house when I needed to or when I got bored. But, no back workout or anything else that could be construed as useful.

From what I understand, if it was an achilles tendon tear, I wouldn't be able to walk or put weight on it, so it's more likely a severe sprain of the calf muscle, or a tear...something like that.

So - most likely I will not be power lifting for a few weeks while this is resolved. It's a nice opportunity to mix my workouts up a bit, I just won't have any updated stats for a while.