Spot the difference!
So following on from my last post, my sore ankle didn’t stay very sore for very long. In fact by the Sunday, it was feeling sufficiently pain free for me to embark on the first of my timed walks.
I was a little cautious, walking at a gentle pace, so as not to aggravate any injury but, to be honest, I was beginning to think that I had merely pulled a muscle or two when I cockled and was relieved to be able to start my fitness walks. What I figured out pretty quickly was that achieving 11k steps every day, was going to involved a lot of commitment, as my average on days when I was doing the time walk, was approximately 5.5k steps!!!
The donkey at the front is Nipper and he is D’s adoption animal.
Over the next 10 days, I did timed 15 minute walks every other day and such was my progress and lack of real pain – there was some soreness as you would expect with a pulled muscle – I decided to take the girls out for the day and we spent an enjoyable two to three hours walking around Bransby Horses, arriving home, tired but revitalised by all the fresh air.
It wasn’t very long after arriving home that I began to feel the effects of being on my feet for three hours. My ankle, foot and toes were aching and my whole foot felt quite stiff, a bit like your fingers feel when you’re dehydrated.
“Does my ankle look swollen again?” asked D.
We couldn’t get a clear picture of R’s adoption animal (Pecan) but she fell in love with this cheeky little fella!
She gave me that teenager look. You know the one! Where they peer back at you from under their lashes with an ‘are you seriously asking me that?’ look on their face, and with a tone to match the look, she announced that my ankle hadn’t NOT looked swollen over the last week and if anything, it was worse!
Oohhh! Okay! Maybe there was a little more damage than I had at first thought.
Now a sensible person would, at this point, have decided to rest for a few days, take it easy, ‘ice, elevate and rest’! But when I woke up the next morning, it still wasn’t hurting TOO much and, once I’d dropped the girls at Mudville, I headed into town to do a shop for fresh groceries and pack-up stuff……AND then I headed to the garden centre to get some houseplant compost and have a good old mooch. I may not have a garden but I do still like to browse.
I eventually made it back home some 4 hours later and, surprise surprise, my poorly ankle was feeling a little unpleasant. Sensibly, once I’d finished the hoovering, filled the washing machine and cleaned the bathroom, I decided to stay off my feet for a little while.
Monday morning came and the girls headed off to school. The school where I work wasn’t opening until Tuesday but I had arranged to go in for a few hours to help get the school ready. I was a little sore and I commented to my colleague about the swelling.
“I think you may need to get that checked out,” she said, “because you can never be too careful.”
A phone call to my GP later and I was on my way to the local A&E for a belated x-ray. In truth I didn’t even get a telephone consultation with a doctor because the triage nurse who took my call, said that all the doctor would say was ‘You need an x-ray’. The next 4 hours was spent navigating the COVID protocols and waiting 40 minutes in A&E and a further 2.5hrs in the fracture clinic waiting to see the Consultant.
Thankfully, nothing was broken but I was told off for not coming sooner, as I have a very bad sprain (and no, I didn’t ‘fess up to the fitness walks). There was no shape at all to my lower leg, it just kind of merged into my ankle and my whole foot including my toes and the pad, were swollen.
So I’m on a week of ‘ice, elevate and rest’, and feeling frustrated because I really, really need to get out and about to build my fitness levels. I can’t go to work, can’t go to the shop. As for my ankle, the swelling has reduced but in doing so, I am really feeling the ache of the obviously badly bruised soft tissue.
The Land Rover Owners Ex Wife 