Rehab: Day 11

CC courtesy of Denis Collette, Flickr

I promise I will writing a post about what happened at the hospital and an in-depth explanation of the genetic mutation. I promise, I promise, I promise! My excuse is that I'm tired when I get round to blogging.

On the other hand, rehab eventually went pretty well yesterday. I had to really force myself to get up and just start it, I've just been exhausted in the last couple of days. I haven't been sleeping properly, insomnia is starting to catch up with me along with a couple of early starts for the hospital etc. 

Anyway, enough of the excuses. Let's take a look at what I managed to do. Well, for starters I can tell that I've made quite a few improvements since last week.

• 23 minutes on the bike at level 2, 6.7km. My speed and endurance have increased and I can feel the mobility starting to return in my knee when I'm just wandering around.
• Ab 10 - I'm starting to see some definition on my obliques and I can tell that I'm so much stronger as I've got a better range of motion on the exercises and I can do more repetitions.
• 15 squats - 5 more than last week and a better range of motion.
• 15 push ups - still on my knees, but 5 more than last week. I'm also getting some upper body strength from using the crutches as I have to support my left leg quite a bit after a while.
• Stretching - I did the best back stretch earlier, in yoga it's called the plough pose (see below). I also started to do some more intensive hamstring and calf stretches and began work on my front and side splits regime but I'll have to take it very slowly with that because the vein can be quite tender after cycling.

CC courtesy of yogamama.co.uk, Flickr

Last night I tried sleeping without my compression stockings on as I got the all clear to try it out from me hematologist. It was odd. I had got so used to being in these stockings for 23 hours a day that to have them off at night felt strange and rather free and airy. I was also quite cold though as they are great insulators - useful when I feel the cold so badly. I woke up still feeling like I was hit by a bus but the swelling was surprisingly little as I'm still sleeping with my leg elevated.  

I also had a bit of a break through! I managed to do my last 3 injection myself!! Seeing as the other half will be going back to work next week he wont be able to do them so I finally bit the bullet and did it. My hematologist also reduced my injection amount from 120mg to 100mg because I've lost weight - yay go me! 

So, what I want to know is if anyone else is going through some form of rehab at the moment or if you've had to go through some tough rehab in the past. Leave a comment below to let me know your experiences, support can be a great healer.