I can see by how you walk that your foot still hurts, EquiisSavant.
I really sympathize because I sprained my ankle badly on April 6 and it still hurts too.
I'm still in Physical Therapy for mine. It hurts when I do the exercises, but I think it's helping even though my progress has been slow.
Is the problem that insurance won't pay for physicical therapy visits for you? It looks to me like they would still be able to help you if you could afford to go.
Also maybe a different brace would help support your ankle better while you ride.
Here is the one I am using:
http://www.hely-weber.com/product.php?id=1
I got mine from the office of the orthopedic surgeon I have been seeing, but I also found it online for $29.95:
http://www.ankleshop.com/proddetail.asp?prod=304
Callaway, it doesn't hurt my foot to ride so long as I am not jumping. I cannot wear any brace under my riding paddock boots, it won't fit. They are special riding boots and I have special stirrups with 4-way flex. The problem is walking, not riding just my one horse.
It is so bad now with the progression and deterioration to the foot that when I get up first thing in the a.m., it has now destroyed my left foot as well, and I almost lose my balance and fall.
My doctor, the one who did the transferences and is being a cowardly rat and autistic patient abandonder, actually examined my foot during Oct. 2008 visit and was very concerned it needed attention timely or might not be able to be fixed. There is nerve damage as well as other damage. It is not just pain or swelling that has not gone away -- knots, but there is also NO toe flexion -- the apparatus that makes you be able to curl and flex toes is gone -- destroyed, if I try to flex my toes, message from brain does not activate apparatus to flex the toes.
Not only does this basically destroy my horse jumping career I was still earning a living from, since if my foot slips in the stirrup due to rambunctious horse on landing from jumps, it jams the toes backwards, and it has no give/flex, so it rips and then excruciating pain beyond pain. Also, in the back part of the walking step, there is no flexion to push off for the next step properly, and that is destroying my left foot from the weight displacement, and is causing further damage to the disc bulges in my lumbar and S1. I also have thoracic scoliosis, and I am sure it is worsening that, as well.
As for the fact of the foot not now being able to be fixed -- do you think I do not have other doctors who have looked at my foot ? They relied on my doctor to follow-through on the timely referral. There are other doctors who have opinions on this !!!!
Why don't we just concede, my chicken-little hiding like a rat because he knows he abused an autistic patient doctor fucked up BIG TIME, and his university and all the other doctors who helped and supervised are going to eat dirt in a jury trial. A little $29 brace is not going to fix this injury -- it is permanent and career ending to a US National Champion in a multi-million dollar Sport of Kings. See my horse jumping pics on my website (Some Autism Horses of my Life and ASC Service Horse, at
http://equiisautisticsavantartist.webs.com/), and maybe you will *get* how high my savant autism abilities were, and where they are now -- trashed by a doctor who HARMED HIS PATIENT !!! And made psychiatric transferences on her to induce her to fall in love with him, by falsely advertising he was not a psych on his University of South Florida pages while advertising elsewhere that he was more than skilled as a psychiatrist -- NO INFORMED CONSENT to the psych transferences, yet -- the one thing he was asked to examine and refer for treatment, the foot, went for a year untreated. And -- he NEVER showed me any of my 4 brain scans !!!! THAT is MALPRACTICE and licensure violation 101.
As for why it wasn't paid for, we have at all times had $100 k uninsured motorist coverage available to pay for this, just all the doctor's university had to do was bill the right geographic location of the right office -- their legal counsel fucked up. My husband, a lawyer, says she looks incompetent to practice law and not qualified for her postition at the university -- fails to understand motor vehcicle acident insurance laws to the point she cannot tell when two different geographic locations in two different states are about 1000 miles apart and cannot understand PIP insurance is not the same coverage as uninsured motorist insurance. But the doctor's legal counsel doubled her fuck up -- she had the head legal counsell file and she signed a statement to her licensing agency, The Florida Bar, saying she billed the uninsured motorist and they told her the benefits were exhausted. Do you know what happens when a lawyer makes a false statement to their licensing agency ?
The thing is, the uninsured motorist claims rep already filed a statement subject to false statement laws if it is wrong, to the Florida Dept. of Financial Services stating he was never billed and has never seen the bills from my doctor's university for the uninsured motorist coverage -- so two people have oppposite statements -- who is LYING ?
The doctor's legal counsel is in an inescapable losing tic-tac-toe pattern -- I made a public records request on her to get her proof that what she told The Florida Bar and keeps repeating is true or false. She did not provide me any records whatsoever to prove her statement of having billed the uninsured motorist coverage is true.
And THAT means, either she has no proof and her statement is clearly false to her licensing agency -- or, she has committed something like a second degree criminal misdemeanor in Florida for not turning over the proof response of public records of her billing the uninsured motorist carrier under the Florida public records laws. If she has the public records to prove she billed the uninsured motorist carrier, it is something like a second degree misdemeanor under Florida law for her not to provide those records to me in response to my public records request I made on her !!!
In sum, either the doctor's legal counsel's lie to her licensing agency or her criminal misdemeanor violation of Florida public records laws -- one or the other, was the cause of my treatment not getting paid to provide me the timely foot care on my doctor's referral, which was in writing in his e-mails.
And, the doctor also wrote several e-mails that he was personally going to ensure the billing got fixed -- he did not get it fixed, he is personally responsible, and then he abandoned me.
I call that the quick road to loss of a medical license.
And why should I care about him -- has he shown me one thing to demonstrate he cares about me whatsoever ?
If he doesn't do the right thing to reinstate his patient and ensure the HARM he and others there caused a vulnerable autistic patient of his, then HE has it coming with his licensing board and in front of a jury.
And he can explain THAT -- what he did and all his transferences, trying to kiss me, and false info about being a psychiatrist, to his wife and kids. Because when the publicity and lawsuits (shit) hits the fan, they are going to find out sooner or later.
He won't have ONE person in the World who thinks he is anything but a dog when this is over -- and rightfully so. HE did this !!!!! I tried to amicably workout a reinstatement to fix the harm. And on a personal level -- all the hair jazz he does to make himself so handsome won't attract any women when they find out he is not even a man !!
A real man -- and a real doctor -- would not have done this and would not have let it go.
Moreover, how ridiculous to think a $29 brace can fix my foot anymore than a $29 lasoo can take out Osama Bin Laden to save the billions of dollars of military fortunes the U.S. has spent trying to catch him.
Just concede -- my doctor fucked up !!!!