Recalled To Life

For those that aren't aware, the title of this post is from Dickens's Tale of Two Cities. It came to mind when I was thinking about what to say, so I went with it even though perhaps it's a bit melodramatic.

I got my cast off this morning. After viewing the x-rays, the orthopedist said it's healed very nicely and the prognosis is quite good. After some discussion on therapy, he asked me to get some hand dumbbells and use them to exercise the wrist; I go back in 3 weeks. The wrist feels mostly just sprained now; the range of motion is pretty limited and my grip strength is a bit weak.

After I left the doctor's office I went home and showered (whee!), changed, and set out for the rink...

Unfortunately I was almost at the rink when I realized I'd left my skates at home! This just made me crack up, it was so ironic and funny to me. I was laughing out loud for several minutes.

When I finally got to the rink it was pretty deserted, a total of 4 people there for the session. I'm not sure what I was really expecting, but what I felt was (ta-da!) FEAR. It was kind of intense. I skated for about 45 minutes, just getting used to the ice, my boots, etc. and my balance. I'm really afraid to skate forward -- I assume it's mostly fear of catching my toepick and having a painful fall with my wrist still as it is. Ironically enough (considering how I hurt myself), skating backwards wasn't bad at all, and I could even almost do back crossovers, albeit not with their former speed. Even more strange, while it took me several minutes to get up to gliding (somewhat tentatively) forward on one foot, I was able to do a LB glide almost as well as before, and a rather weak RB glide. Beyond that, I limited myself to one two-footed 3-turn, and a couple of slow two-foot spins. I didn't try any turns at all, nor spirals nor lunges.

All in all, it was worse than I'd hoped for. After a mere 45 minutes though there was marked improvement so that's good. I will try to skate tomorrow for an hour or so, and then I have my lesson Friday. This week is pretty busy so it's hardly optimal.