Lessons Learned

I learned a lot from my experience with my ankle. Like, it's hard to do most things when you can only walk on one leg. But most lessons were more important than that and I hope others can learn from my experience.

1. Listen to your body. You know your body better than anyone else, even your doctor. If you're young and not healing, there's something wrong. Young people hurt themselves, but the benefit of being young and healthy is you heal quickly.

2. Be an advocate for yourself. It's ok to speak up if you don't like what's happening. If you called the practice to see a certain doctor, see that doctor. If you've tried what the doctor tells you to do but it's not working, speak up and let them know.

3. Take someone with you to major medical appointments. I wish I had taken my mom with me sooner. I found that I would get overwhelmed at my appointments and not hear everything or not get all my questions asked. Having her there made it easier to advocate, ask my questions, and have someone else hear the answers in case I forgot.

4. Write down your questions. You will feel overwhelmed and forget to ask things, so write them down ahead of time when you think of them and bring them with you to your appointment.

5. It's ok to ask 5 million questions. Ok, maybe not 5 million, but that's how many I felt like I asked. The week before surgery I was full of questions and called the office almost everyday. The lovely, patient nurses there called me back and answered them all. They didn't mind and understood that I was nervous.