Learning to Float

Sink or swim, baby!

Kick kick kick kick kick, don’t stop moving. Head down, hips up, don’t waste breath.

I know how to work hard. How to grind. How to TRY.

Goodness was really important in the culture and family I grew up in, but if you couldn’t manage to be good, you sure better be TRYING and you’d better be sweating while you’re doing it. Because I knew that I was rarely good, I learned how to try really, really hard. How to set my jaw and push. Keep a tight grip. Control everything I could — either through brute force or careful engineering.

Unfortunately, I’m still learning that sometimes all the trying in the world doesn’t make a difference. Sometimes it can actually make things worse.

That’s where I found myself 5 weeks post-op from my total ankle replacement.

By that point, I’d planned to be back in the office part-time seeing a handful of clients that would be relatively “easy” for me to work with. All I was really worried about post-op was pain. And since I’m kind of a bad ass when it comes to pain, I figured no biggie, 5 weeks off should be enough.

My ortho and my physical therapist disagreed.

As I so often do, I’d planned to bite off more than I could chew.

One of the most common “big deal” complications with a total ankle replacement involves delayed healing in the 6-8 inch anterior midline incision. In the online TAR group I’m in, I’ve seen people with incisions that are still scabby 12+ weeks post-op, incisions that are open and gooey months and months after surgery. While it’s rare, the worst case scenario here is a joint infection that won’t clear (which can mean amputation).

My PT and my ortho both explained that swelling is a big factor in healing. When tissue expands, it creates tension and pulling that can stress the incision and cause it to open up, risking infection. And (annoyingly) the best thing for keeping swelling down is minimizing the time you’re vertical.

So the plan needed to be rest, ice, compression, elevation.

It turns out that early recovery wasn’t something I could control by just trying harder. Ironically, the only thing I could really do was to TRY LESS (not something I’m particularly good at).