Week 6 (Sunday January 11, 2015)

It's been 6 weeks since getting my HyProCure implant surgery on my right foot. I've been back and forth over how well the recovery has been over the last 2 weeks since I've written my last blog post. I've stopped sleeping with the aircast stirrup now in the last week, but it's hit or miss on how well I sleep. There are some nights where even the slightest movement in the lateral direction can create a pain so badly that I wake up with each one (ie almost every other hour in my sleep). Or, there are nights like last night, where I'm sure I moved around in my sleep, but I slept soundly a full 8 hours without any pain. I'm sure it's all a function of what I'm doing throughout the day.

On that note, I can say that I've been bustling through airports and have taken 7 flights through the last 3 weeks, and I seem to manage just fine as long as I'm wearing my running shoes with my orthotics. Or, I suppose any flat boot that gives my foot some room to "give"/swell as it needs to. The last flight I took was 3 days ago, and I had been wearing a cute pair of Sam Edelman flats (which are extremely comfortable!), but after wearing them all day and then heading home on a late flight Thursday evening, I was limping onto the airplane. I rested my foot for the 2 hour flight, but then limped off the plane to hurry to a cab to get home. It was much better once I got home and was barefoot throughout my house. What happened: by the end of the day each day, my foot has some sort of swelling on the inside portion of it. I find this odd as it's on the opposite side of the incision, but anyway, it happens each day as I'm on my feet a lot. I'm very active as you know from reading the blog. I've started doing upper body workouts again, and I walk around all the time around the city. It is irking that I still have swelling, but then again, I feel like it's healing faster than last time 5 years ago. To summarize on the shoes options, I would avoid ballerina-style flats (your foot will swell naturally throughout the day and they get too tight) and shoes with more than a 1.5" high heel. Good thing I have plenty of other options; I'm guessing that I'm still about 2 weeks away from exploring back into my high heel shoes options.

I'm not traveling at all for work over the next week, so I'll be working from home and taking it easier on my foot. Depending on how I feel next weekend then, I'm going to start doing some spinning and perhaps a yoga class. I can say for certain that my foot is clearly not ready for any sort of running or even walking for more than 1-mile at a time without breaks. However, I'm not discouraged as I'm only 6 weeks into the healing process now, and I remember that it was 12 weeks last time before I started running again. I'll have more to post next time on how spinning/walking exercising has been.