A foot that does its job

So, I started this blog when I was off sick from work for over a month after having reconstructive surgery on my foot. It's been just over a year, and I still look down at it in mild surprise. Recently, as more loyal readers will know, I had my garden levelled and redesigned, and I have the same feeling when I look at the garden as when I look at my foot. It is as if someone made off with the old one while I was asleep and replaced it with someone else's. OK it wasn't quite that simple. I have been doing physiotherapy for an hour nearly every single day. In a world of commuting, travelling, full time work, family commitments, socialising, domestic chores and general hubbub of London life, an hour of physiotherapy is an unthinkable commitment. I don't know how you keep it up, is the constant refrain from my mates. But then you wouldn't would you? Because if you've never been in a situation where you have had a new foot attached to the end of your leg that then has to be taught every single thing a foot needs to do - point the toes, flex the toes, turn the heel, roll the foot, walk, run, jog, crawl...well, if you had to build from scratch, as I did, you would also put in your hour a day. So. Over a year later and I still find myself standing in the street staring down at my left leg to the consternation of commuters all around me. I'm still in a state of appreciating just how far I have come, that I am able to walk down a street steadily, even rapidly. But what an extraordinary learning experience it has been about the subtleties of biomechanics. I've fallen off my bike, for example, three times in the last month. Why is that? Well, because each time I have had to do an emergency stop because some Neanderthal in a fast car has decided that He Alone Owns The Road. Such an emergency stop would not make anyone else fall off their bike, but I do. And this is because when you stop suddenly on your bike your feet provide the stability on the ground. But my left foot is only around 99 percent stable. The one per cent that is missing, is the tiny millimetre further of range that my big toe needs, to do its job of stabilising the rest of the foot when you are on your tiptoes. Think about it. Big toe doesn't work? Tiptoes are impossible. Who needs to be on tiptoes? I do, when I make an emergency stop on my bike. One person's optional extra is another's difference between safety and injury. So I'm still doing physiotherapy. Up and down the swimming pool on tiptoes. Ages on one of those weird vibrating machines in the gym that makes your head rattle like a Tom and Jerry cartoon clip. Endless calf raises on a step with dumbells for extra challenge. Watching The Voice standing on a wobble board, or not watching it because I have my eyes closed to challenge my stability further. Hopping for minutes on end on the trampoline. Physiotherapy is not dignified work. And it's painful. But you keep at it for the reward and the endless message of hope that each millimetre of extra mobility gives you. Are you someone who is battling an orthopaedic injury? I am here to tell you that hope is in sight. It's just that progress is not given you on a plate. The day I manage to complete a bike ride without knee bruises, is the day I find a new Everest. After all that hard work, why stop at just cycling?