I've been in physical therapy for over a month now @ 3x a week. In the beginning it was easy and I thought, "hey, this isn't so bad". I was mainly doing stretches and sitting down exercises, along with massage and stuff. Boy, I had no idea what I was in for.

This is what I'm now doing 3x a week (not including what I do at home):

• Treadmill for 15 minutes at a 10% incline


• 30 lunges on each leg (well, I’m supposed to do 30, but I’m only up to 25 before my legs give out on me…)


• 6 sets of 30 seconds balancing on my ‘bad’ foot on foam rubber


• 6 sets of 30 seconds balancing on my ‘bad’ foot on a shuttle balance.


• 30 of back and forth, side by side, and around clockwise and counterclockwise balancing on my "bad" foot on a BAPS board.


• 60 heel stretches (tippy toes up and down)


• 90 jumps off a shuttle machine. I lie down and push off with my feet and land on my feet. It has bungee cords or something like that to make it more work. That one really works my lower abs too. BONUS!


• 90 heel stretches on the same machine


• 60 steps up on a 6” box


• 60 steps down on the same box


• 60 dance routine (that’s what I call it because I'm going up and down sideways each way and back and forth) on the same box


• ½ hour of fankle manipulation and massage (sometimes feels good, sometimes not)


• 20 minutes of electrical stimulation therapy with ice


• 15 minutes of ultrasound therapy to get the swelling down


• Annndddddd…. stretching

Now that I'm walking without a boot, my ankle has been popping out of place (think of having no muscular support for 50 years because I've had a bone holding my ankle in place), so that's not fun. My PT has to manipulate it back in place. It's happened twice this week. Before being popped into place, I'd give it a good 6-7 on the pain scale, and that makes me crabby.

The bonus is that I'm starting to lose the weight I've put on since this ordeal. I put it on in two chunks; before the first surgery in May 2010 because I couldn't walk without pain. I only lost about 10 lbs of that before getting back into the cycle of staying off my foot prior to the surgery in December. I've gone from a size 8-10 to a size 14 in the past 2 years thanks to lack of exercise. I've been able to keep my calories at or under 800, but that's not helped much.

...just another goal I need to work on. Working out at PT will help with that, for sure. After that, I'm on my own but I don't expect I'll be done with PT until at least May.