Yes, doc!

Hello, everybody! My doctors have told me the truth – they can really work miracles here. The next day after the first course of procedures I was already able to step on my foot quite normally. Can you imagine that? Of course, it did hurt, but I could leave the crutches in the back of my room. And three days later I went to the court – to get some shooting practice. Fancy that!

First day after the injury I was looking at my ankle and couldn’t believe it would happen. I was listening to the doctors, but deep down I still didn’t believe what they were saying. Of course, I didn’t doubt their professional skills. I just couldn’t believe in those terms of recovery they predicted. After all, they aren’t some kind of magicians. But, certainly, I hoped a lot for their predictions to come true.

And can you imagine what a shock I had when I woke up next morning? I felt like it wasn’t me! Where was that Timofey Mozgov who couldn’t walk without his crutches yesterday, who thought he would suffer from this annoying sharp pain for several days at best, and who thought that the preparation for his first training after the injury will take no less than a week?

I’ll tell you more: a day later I took off my plaster splint. Here it is on the picture. In fact, I did it after the third course of procedures!

As I was reading your comments to my blog, I saw many of you advising me to take it slow with exercises. Thanks for your care and the experience you share. I really won’t be hurrying up with the exercises. But the situation is that I trust the local doctors, and the procedures they prescribe allow me to start carefully putting pressure on the injured joint without pains after several days already. Learned it at first hand.

They have their own schedule for my treatment. Sometimes it’s twice a day, sometimes only once. Average duration of the process is two hours and a half. They make ultrasound, put some electric stickers on me, then proceed to electrophoresis (I hope I got it right) with a medicinal powder, and ice massage (they put ice in a glass and massage the injured place with it).

I have some issues with that ice procedure. As I wrote before it’s very painful to me. The thing is I’m hypersensitive to cold. I remember holding an ice pack on an injured area for too long – and my skin just blistered! Hot water is much better for me.

When I got rid of that ‘clog’, they also added alternating baths and water exercises for my ankle and knee. Take a look are the photos of these ‘treatment instruments’.

The round tub is filled with extremely cold water, while in the rectangular one it’s very hot.

So you move from one tub into the other once every two minutes. And in that pool with two arrow signs you have to walk against the stream – heading forwards, backwards, and sideways. You should know that the water resistance there can be set so strong that you won’t think you want more of that. The pressure really carries you away.

As soon as I was able to get to the baths, I also started working out in the gym. Began with my arms and shoulders. Some days ago I also added my legs. That made my training one hour longer.

In between those enormous quantities of recovery procedures our masseurs keep rubbing my ankle. They rub it till it hurts, but they say that’s exactly how it should be.

Every time before any exercises I tie up my foot with some kind of elastic tape. It’s a retentive bandage – a cross between a tape and an elastic bandage. And I also add a sticker with my medicines.

Lately I have moved on even further – started running around the pitch. My knee began to act up straight away. There was no pain before I resumed the exercises. The doctors told me that’s how it would feel for the next two or three days. It’s OK and I shouldn’t have been surprised. Though they didn’t recommend me anything clearly, I asked them for a knee-pad. I decided to avoid risks, so at first I trained with it on.

Again, I’ve read your advice in the comments – to wear it all the time. Unfortunately, I can’t play in it for a long time. It feels very uncomfortable! I remember trying to do that after the surgery – back at Khimki – and failing to stand it for more than a week. That was my limit. I’d better strengthen my ligaments with additional exercises.

By the way, Danilo was my companion during these procedures. He left the pitch in the second quarter of the game against Minnesota with a right hamstring injury. X-ray showed his injury isn’t that bad, but he still had to deal regularly with the doctors for some time. And here’s another thing: though we have been working by our individual plans, we still had to attend the team’s meetings without fail.

My schedule being so tight I only managed to fly with the team to Utah lately. Of course, it doesn’t matter for the doctors where to perform my procedures, at home or away, – they have everything they need with themselves. But somehow it always happened that either I had to visit the healthcare center, or we had games at home. For example, during the Minnesota game I was sitting in the stands in a suit. And in Salt-Lake-City after some work before the game under the supervision from the doctors and the coaches all six of us (we have quite a lot of injured players, huh?) decided to watch the game in the dressing room.

We arrived to the Mormons game on the previous day – so I had the time to meet Andrei and Masha. As always, we went out for dinner. Masha had just arrived from Moscow and brought Andrei some new DVDs with movies. At my request he gave me the second season of a Russian TV series called «Realnye Patsany» (in English it would be «Stand-Up Guys»). So now I watch it.

The play-offs are soon to come, and we’ve just landed in Oklahoma. Before the departure I had my first true training session where we already played. Before it, as I already said, we were mostly shooting.

I’m not sure if I can step onto the court in my first ever NBA play-off. I think it is very, very unlikely in the first games. Although, of course, I’m mad about playing again. But common sense has the upper hand over my emotions – I am afraid of a relapse. However, if I continue my recovery like I do now, there’s some hope to be garnered that… Oh, no – let’s wait and we’ll see.