Rehab Weeks 5 & 6

Week 5 was a partial repeat of week 4 with physio exercises to perform at my own leisure on my arm and now starting this week, my leg. You see I went to visit Joe my physio and although there was to be no progress with my arm, I asked for and received a set of exercises for my leg. When we were practising the exercises there was one particular exercise, 'the side leg lift' I knew I would have a lot of difficulty with and that exercise is when laying down on my side, my good side, I was asked to lift my bad leg up into the air and I couldn't lift it, not an inch, not even a millimetre, I couldn't for the life of me perform the exercise below.It's crucial that I regain this movement as the muscles that control this movement, the hip abductors which include the gluteus medius along with the gluteus minimus, in other words your bum muscles if not developed will leave you with a limp says Joe. The problem with my hip abductor muscles was not caused by the accident but rather the surgery. When they operated on me and inserted the metal work, the Dynamic Hip Screw, they naturally had to cut me open somewhere and its these abductor muscles that was cut open, a cut approximately 10 inches long.

Over the next week I am getting stronger because of the exercises. Since I cannot perform the side leg lift, Joe gave me an easier exercise called 'the clam' that will eventually strengthen the hip abductor muscles. Over the week I start to reap the rewards from performing the clam as I can now move my leg in a proper side leg lift, not a great deal and not for long but it's a start.

The clam exercise

Today week 6, I had another visit to see my Consultant and unlike last time when I saw a stand-in, today I got to see my Consultant who said that my hip has started to heal well but it's not time yet to start walking on it, not yet anyway but I can put a little weight through it which is great news.

I did find out something interesting though about my arm, he had said previously that bits of bone from my ulna was missing and today he expanded on that and told me that a large chunk of bone had been nuked in the fall and was only good for the bin also the only thing holding my bones fixed in the right orientation was the metal plate and screws and it will take time for the 'gap' in my bone as he called it to heal. It's amazing how the bones heal, here's a wiki on the process with an excellent x-ray showing how the bones reach out to each other to 'callus'. My Consultant also said the clicking in my elbow is the break in my radius bone setting slightly out of shape, come back in a year and if it's still a problem I can have it shaved.

So that's it, that's where I'm up to right now...

Rehab Week 4

Tuesday 8th Feb, week 4 of my rehab and week 5 and 2 days post spill. I have a pivotal hospital appointment whereupon it will be decided whether or not I can start weight bearing on my gammy leg. Arriving at the hospital and sat in the waiting room I over-hear the nurses saying that the consultant I am to see is on holiday and also his registrar is off work ill and I know immediately from years of visiting hospitals that nothing will be decided today by whoever they draft in to cover.

I'm sent for an x-ray, so far so good and then I'm in to see Mr stand-in who looks at my new x-ray and tells me to carry on non weight bearing and come back in two weeks, grrr I was right about nothing being decided today he played it safe but in his defence I could see the new x-rays and yes I could see that my leg was still not healed, not that I expected it be fully healed, that will take months not weeks but it had healed somewhat. On the plus side I will just have to be content with sitting down with the TV remote being waited on for at least another two weeks...

Hohum....

Wattbikes...

I've only had the opportunity to ride a Wattbike on one occasion but in that one session I quickly realised how marvelous these machines are with the range of info you can have displayed regarding your power and cycling technique. On the digital readout there are 3 or 4 screens to scroll through and one of them is a graph that shows how much power you are putting out anywhere on the pedal stroke and which leg is the stronger. I didn't know how to interpret what I was looking at until I saw this explanation over on Cyclesport.org

This is a quick pic that I took of my Wattbike during last years Soreen Challenge at the Manchester Velodrome.


Now looking at the various shapes from that Cyclesport post, I think (and you can correct me if I'm going blind) my shape loosely resembles that of the Peanut...

I quote:

The Peanut typifies a good cyclist, or someone who naturally understands how to deliver force to the pedals to good effect – people who ride fixed crank bikes naturally have a better understanding of maintaining pedal momentum and often show the peanut shape.

You may beg to differ but I do think my shape is as I say that of a peanut, a deformed one maybe but a peanut nonetheless. In my defence of the deformity I was sat up taking that photo so that may account for the weirdness and whether I stand up to the Cyclesports interpretation of a 'good cyclist' is a matter of debate ;-)

Rehab Week 3

It's groundhog day, day after day and I'm getting seriously fed up with the monotony of it all but at least I had my rehab session to look forward to on Wednesday however what a waste of time that was, after measuring my progress I was told to carry on doing what I'm doing and come back in 2 weeks when they will start on my leg. No new exercises, no hands on, nothing new, I have however made some progress in my range of movement in my arm by a couple of extra degrees, I'm approx 3 inches away from my left finger tips touching my left shoulder and approx 5 degrees of straightening my arm out fully so I've seen small improvements.

More positively I'm not in as much pain now and I can now type two handed. The clicking in my elbow has diminished somewhat, it's still there but no sharp pains. Joe my rehab person thinks that it is as she previously explained - excess new bone growing out of the unpinned break in my radius bone and the pain is just inflammation so I gave it a rest for a couple of days resulting in a lot less pain upon restarting rehab. I am also fantasy shopping adding stuff to my fantasy shopping list, I want some new training wheels and some not so bulky body armour for my elbows and hip, might look a numpty but if that is what it takes to get me out on my bike and rebuild my confidence well so be it...

Next week is a pivitol week for me. On Tuesday which will take me to 5 weeks 2 days post breaks, I will be x-rayed to see if my leg is sufficiently healed enough to enable me to start putting some weight down on my gammy leg and hopefully be able to hobble around on crutches...