My Left Quad, Part 2, and Heels

Back in January three weeks after my accident and before I started physical therapy, my left quad was not firing. It lay there inert, not flexing. It had atrophied to the point of not functioning. My physical therapist Evan asked me to flex my quad and I had no idea how. I remember the look on his face when we went through a range of exercises and nothing happened. He looked at my leg and I could see the gears moving. What do I need to do to get this dead thigh back in business?

Last Tuesday before I went to Ohio, I went to physical therapy and I saw the same look on Evan's face as I did in January. Three weeks after the surgery, I could do ninety leg lifts and I earned my way out of the brace. My quad was reasonably strong. As I progressed, Evan added new exercises and reduced my leg lifts to forty-five a day once a day, which should have been fine, except...

Like the single sex herd of dinos that managed to reproduce in the first Jurassic Park, my body found another way. Instead of my quad getting stronger, my hamstrings took the lead. I was on the bench at physical therapy. Evan told me to flex my quad while he had his hands around my left knee in a stranglehold position. I flexed.

"That's your hamstring," he said.

Fuck. 

The Bad News: I've been working the wrong muscle group for the past few weeks.

The Good News: At least Evan and I figured this out sooner than later.

The Bad News: Back to leg lifts. This sucks.

As my father had told me after my surgery, "It is all uphill from here, but at least when you get to the top of the hill you'll be in really good shape." So I had a little backslide on the way up. Eh. I suppose the goal is to get me up to the top of the hill so I can ski back down it someday. Who knew the uphill part would be the hardest?

And heels. We had tickets to see Billy Elliot at the Village Theatre in Issaquah* last night.  I wore a dress, but I have no matching shoes. I tried wearing a few pairs of heels, but they make me feel like I am walking downhill, which is not fun for me yet. These heel weren't even that high. I wonder if my shoes miss my feet. I ended up wearing my Noat sandals, which are wonderfully comfy, but style-wise a notch above Birkenstocks. Is this my solution, a dressy Noat? Perhaps.

The Krista in Satin Gold by Naot. Also available in Pewter-Metal and Black.

Egads! What does this mean? I like my comfortable shoes, but is this too far? I know I am deeply into middle age, but I am not ready to be doddering. And yet, maybe this is the best thing. I read an article in this week's New Yorker by Mary Karr. She rants against high heels. As I type, "Heels" was just autocorrected to "hells," which nicely summarizes Karr's view of spiky, towering shoes.

* Great show, by the way. I love the Village Theatre. It is such a cozy venue.