I stayed in bed Friday morning in a final effort to get the excessive swelling to go down. It worked! Here’s my view at noon on Friday:
Three months + one day post surgery for a trimalleolar fracture in my left ankle
The swelling from last weekend’s activity was beginning to worry me; it still looked pretty bad on Thursday night. I will be more careful in the future about remembering to take the time to rest and elevate my ankle. At some point, I hope to remove the nail polish from mid-October and apply a fresh coat of color — but that requires more contortion than I’m willing to provide right now.
In an effort to keep from swelling up again, I indulged in only a few hours of very mild activity on Friday afternoon: I mixed up, rolled out, and prepared pie pastry (SuperDad took care of prepping the apples for filling) and then drove a couple miles to sit in a recliner, drink tea, and visit with a friend. By 5pm, my ankle was back to its normal amount of swelling — yes, just that little bit of activity is enough to cause my ankle to swell. Welcome to my world!
Spokalulu 
Thanks for posting the photo of your feet. Happy that you were able to get the swelling down within the week. Keeping you in my prayers. Sending hugs!
I don’t think of making pie crust as a mild activity. It’s hard work!
If you make pies often enough, it’s pretty easy work. It’s the standing time that takes its toll on me — that’s why my husband had to prepare his own apples for the filling and take the scraps of pastry to finish off the top of the pies before baking them.
Honestly, the hardest part sometimes is getting the kitchen counters cleaned off and ready for use!
So happy to hear the swelling has gone down. Take care of that ankle because it is the only one you have (ok I know you have two but you only have one left ankle)
Oof, even still it looks puffy. That’s going to stop eventually, right?
To answer your question — I really don’t know. The physical therapists tell me that I’m at a weird stage where I need to push through with stretching and exercising and then it won’t hurt as badly (and hopefully won’t be as swollen) but no one can say when that will happen. That about the least puffy it gets, at least since 2:45pm on November 13th. Scary, isn’t it? The surgeon told me it would be a year before I was fully healed (or as healed as I will become). For now, my left ankle is an inch larger in diameter than my right ankle. That might be my “new normal” or I might be lucky and become less obviously damaged. There’s always a small amount of constant pain/annoyance (3-4 on the Improved Pain Scale, or 2-3 on my personal pain scale) — the kind of pain that I can usually push through and focus on something else; an annoying discomfort that I try to ignore in order to work and be socially appropriate. The past 24 hours have been the next higher level of pain (5-6 on the IPS, with bees or or 4-5 on my PPS) and it was difficult sitting in church today and equally difficult being at home.
That looks pretty darn good considering what it’s been through. Also, nice pj pants 🙂
Thanks! I like them. 🙂 I’d wear them out in public if I could get away with it now, but once I stopped using the wheelchair, my excuses were gone. I’m never sure if what I am feeling is minor pain or simply discomfort from all of the hardware. Once I hit the need for medication, then I know for sure it is pain.
Keep elevating! Feel better!
Thanks! I learned last week that long hours are not a good plan, so I’m working shorter hours but more days this week to even it out a bit. Home now and resting/icing/elevating away. 🙂