Crutch Confessional

Life since M2B has been....interesting. By which I mean deeply painful, and very inconvenient. Let's take it day by day, shall we?

Sunday 5/26: By the time I got to the airport Sunday, I could only walk in tiny, shuffling, extremely painful steps, & navigated my way around the rental car return mostly by clinging to anything I could use as a support to help avoid putting any weight on my right leg. This was made even more interesting by the fact that I was carrying three bags. When I got to the airport proper, the idea of continuing to walk on it was just laughable. Finally someone at the ticket counter took pity on me & ordered a wheel chair.

Back in SF, it took a solid five minutes & Don & my combined efforts to transport me from the car to the couch. There may or may not have been a lot of yelping. At this point, any amount of weight on my right leg was a 17 out of 10 on the pain scale. If I wanted to go from one room to another, I had to either hop on one leg or use a funny little crab shuffle I eventually figured out. I couldn't sleep because that night because, even just laying in bed not moving, the pain was still maybe 7 out of 10.

Monday 5/27: I can stand in one place with weight mostly on my good leg with basically no pain, & take very, very small hobbly steps, mostly leaning on things, & stay at ~2.5 out of 10. Stepping the wrong way, turning, or moving too quickly still 17 out of 10.

It's so tragic it's hilarious. I guess.

Tuesday 5/28: Still taking tiny steps at ~2-3 out of 10, but I can bear maybe just a little more weight. Still can't put on pants or shoes without sitting down. Still can't go up & down steps without holding on to something & going very very slowly. I had a massage on Tuesday morning, and for ~2-3 hours I was totally pain free as long as I stuck to my tiny little steps & went slowly. Then it came back.

Wednesday 5/29: I tried doing some martial arts just standing in one place, but it turns out that all the upper body stuff that uses your core still uses those lower hip flexor muscles, so after half an hour I gave up & just sat down.

Friday 5/31: Everything pretty much the same. Went to PT Friday morning, & the PT told me that because I only had pain with weight bearing & not with passive motion, it was likely just muscle & not connective tissue (which is good, because connective tissue has less of a blood supply & takes longer to heal). When I told her about how I couldn't put on pants or go up & down stairs with the bad leg, she said. "Yeah...That's really bad." She gave me a crutch, which made it so that I could take my slow little steps with more of a biomechanically normal gait, & with almost no pain.

Monday 6/3: Another massage in the morning, which again got rid of the pain for about 2 hours. Then it came back. Still on the crutch. Still can't weight bear. Still can't go up & down stairs. Saw my regular PT in the afternoon, who ruled out a bunch of stuff (bursitis, labral tears) & was still mystified as to why, a week after the fact, I still couldn't put weight on the leg without my knee locked. "To be honest, we've kind of ruled out everything but bone," he said. "It's not really presenting like bone, but even with the worst muscle strain in the world, you shouldn't need a crutch after a week." The decision was to do x-rays next Monday and confirm or rule out a femoral neck stress fracture.

Tuesday 6/4: I can walk almost normally without the crutch, with almost no pain. I can take bigger steps with almost no pain (most of the time) move my hip joint through the full range of motion in every direction with no pain. Turning my leg at the hip & then trying to step is still ~4 out of 10, and bearing weight on it with a bent knee or trying to go up & down steps is still 17 out of 10 (ie, I pretty much just collapse).

So....that is the story so far. I am deeply troubled by what basically amounts to complete & total healing of the muscle soreness combined with the equally complete & total inability to bear weight without debilitating pain. SF Second Half, we may have to reschedule sometime. :(