Reboot

Well, it seems I've progressed backward over the last week in terms of ankle healing, so today the physical therapist took me off exercise for the weekend and told me to pretty much completely stay off my ankle if possible for the weekend. If I absolutely have to walk... it's back to the boot. Argh!

She explained a little more about how I got injured, which was useful. When I was training for and running the marathon, there was a lot of wear-and-tear on my ankle tendons (which is normal when you're doing that kind of thing). But after the marathon, when I became sedentary, the tendons weren't getting enough blood to heal properly. Tendons don't have a great blood supply of their own, so they only get access to a good amount of blood if you're moving the surrounding areas (i.e., exercising), which I was not. So, since I wasn't moving, the tendons weren't getting much blood, and they would have needed blood in order to heal. What this means is that in order for them to heal now, they need movement that isn't stressful because that will bring blood to the area. The physical therapist told me that she actually wants me moving my ankle a lot (toe pointing, etc.) but not putting weight on it because it isn't strong enough to handle that yet. That made sense and clarified what I should be trying to do right now.