Slow Ride

Got up early today with a simple plan: Uber up to Maryland to meet my new physical therapist.

Reader, the Uber app routed my poor driver out of DC and into Virginia to come get me. Nope. Cancel that. New plan: I’ll just… drive myself! I mean, it’s been almost eight weeks, my foot feels great, how hard could it be? I marched (limped) confidently out to the car, turned the key. Nothing. Silence.

My battery, after sitting parked for more than eight weeks, was KA-PUT. Dead as a doornail.

So I dragged my husband out of bed and he and the pups drove me to Maryland to meet Brian at FYZICAL Therapy. And yes, I KNOW: the spelling looks like the name of one of those shady Chinese Amazon sellers. But Brian is real and he is delightful.

Here’s the thing, though. I think I may have outfoxed myself. After an initial assessment, we discovered that my brand new surgical foot is already MORE flexible than my “healthy” left one (which, in fairness, went through this exact rodeo back in 2022). Leave it to me to overdo it. In my defense: I have been diligent about home exercises. In the prosecution’s defense: I have been diligent about home exercises without a physical therapist telling me what to do.

Brian gave me a few solid exercises and I left with a promise to him that I would not overdo it. My goals this week: go at the pace of the expert fixer, NOT the expert f—er-upper (aka: me).

Meanwhile, the car. Friday morning it’s getting dropped off for a new battery, and once that’s taken care of, lookout world, I am BACK. (Almost.) The weekend goal is to give driving a shot and see if I’ve still got enough juice in the ankle and foot to safely navigate the mean streets of DC.

Fun context: nine years ago today, August 26, 2017, I got behind the wheel for the first time after this same foot’s first surgery. Five weeks post-op, in a brand new car. Reader, that new car is the very one sitting dead-battery in the driveway right now. We’ve both put a lot of miles on since then.

So: slow ride on the PT. Slow ride on the driving. Slow ride on the recovery. Foghat had it right — take it easy.