Ahead of schedule!

Finally, at last, something is going my way.   The timeline for a femoral neck stress fracture recovery is pretty lengthy.  I have had two friends who had this exact injury; one was on crutches for 8 weeks and the other for 3 months.  Neither ran for 4 months.  From my research on the Internet, this is pretty much par for the course.  Most people are on crutches for 8-12 weeks, and then slowly start walking and then intervals with running.  

I saw my doctor two weeks after my initial diagnosis on April 20 for a follow-up.  I wasn't sure what to expect--if she'd want to do an x-ray to look for new bone growth or what.  At my appointment, she did some of the same exercises that she used to diagnose my injury.  There was minimal discomfort, so she said I could start "partial weight bearing", which means I can put some weight on my injured leg!  I started with just "toe-touching", which is basically using the crutches as normal, but putting my toe down to test the waters.  

After a few days, I moved to adding 25% of my body weight, then 50%.  After a week, I have graduated to one crutch!  I use the crutch on my good side, moving it in unison with my injured leg.  With every stage in this process, I have felt a bit of discomfort (not sharp pain) after the first day, but within two days I am good.  I see my doctor again this coming Wednesday, which will be 4 weeks post-diagnosis. I am crossing all fingers and toes that I might actually get to start walking without my crutches in the next couple of weeks! 

The other great thing is that I am allowed to swim!  Well, not exactly swim, but pull with a pull buoy.  And no pushing off the wall with my injured leg.  I've been three times in the past 1.5 weeks.  Today was the first time that I took the pull buoy off and swam without it, with some VERY light kicking for about 200 yards.  Like, almost nonexistant... and there was zero pain.  The Sunday before my diagnosis, I swam and I definitely had discomfort when I kicked.  So this was a very very happy moment today!  

More than anything right now, I just want to walk.  I am honestly very scared of running right now. I have no interest in jumping into it!  My summer vacation starts in a couple of weeks, and I want to be able to go to the park with the kids and not be hobbling around.  Right now, a nice long leisurely walk sounds heavenly!

This is actually a good time for this injury, as April and May are super-busy months for us with spring activities for the kids.  The worst part is that I miss my friends.  I got to have an early coffee date with Amanda one day, and Allison S. another.  I met Amy for fro-yo and a park date with our kids.  And Kim came over and gel-manicured my nails.  It's not the same as complaining through our early-morning miles, of course, but it's something.  I did have to unfollow my running pages on Facebook... having every single post on my feed with running as the subject was just too much.  I know I will be back, but for now my focus is on not thinking about when that will happen.