Hello everyone! I’m back after the most BORING WEEK EVER of doing this.
It wasn’t even fun being waited on by my amazing caretaker, Nicholas. I just wanted to do things for myself. SIGH. I guess we all knew I was never going to be a good ‘Netflix and Chill’ kind of person…
Yesterday, however, was super exciting because I had my first follow-up appointment. I can’t remember the last time I’d been that excited to go to the Doctor. Why all the excitement, you ask? Well, mostly because I had been forbidden to take off the bandage after surgery, so this appointment would be my first look at the damage (particularly what my new sewed-together toes looked like). Not going to lie, it was pretty gnarly, so if you’re squeamish, stop reading after the next picture.
Getting to the doctor’s office required some effort. I’ve mostly been moving around on my knee scooter in the house, but I needed to use crutches to get into the doctor’s office. I could definitely use more practice with crutches. I think Nick was embarrassed. :) Then I had to extend my leg up across the entire back seat for the 20-minute ride there. Funny how tricky navigating into and out of a car can be.
Upon arrival, the first thing we did was an x-ray. Even though I knew the doctor had removed some bone, it was still shocking to look at the x-ray and find a gaping hole between two of my bones. I’ve highlighted it with a blue arrow in the x-ray below so it’s easy to find.
Can you believe there used to be a metatarsal head there! So of course this begged the question, “Well what will happen in that open space?” The doctor assured me that the joint capsule will collapse a bit and provide a squishy layer between the bones. And because of that instability from the gap, the toes needed to be fused together.
X-ray behind me, I settled in the exam room chair and gawked in anticipation as the nurse cut through layer after layer of bandages. Not sure what I was expecting to find since I’ve never had surgery before, but this was definitely not it. The whole foot had an orange-ish glow to it from the operating-room antiseptic. There were no signs of swelling or infection (yay me!) and very little bruising. However, I couldn’t stop staring at the Frankenstine-esque stitches running up the side of my pinkie toe. I felt kind of bad for my pinkie toe; it looked like he lost his autonomy and got shoved behind toe #4.
I know some of you will want a close-up, so here you go.
There was lots of crusted blood between the two toes and along the bottom of the foot. The nurse cleaned off a bit, but left most of it for a later date.
The doctor said it’s healing beautifully though, and that I’ve been a star patient (that’s me!) by keeping it up and icing it so frequently. Both the swelling and pain have been minimal thanks to our efforts. Hoping to keep that trend going, as I up my hourly walking time this week. I’m now supposed to be weight-bearing on it for 10 minutes an hour in my walking boot. My first attempts at this have resulted in swelling and pain, so it looks like I’ll need to ease into it a bit slower if I don’t want to set myself back.
In two weeks I’ll return to get my stitches out. Until then, I’ll be continuing to keep my leg up for the other 50 minutes and hour that I’m not putting pressure on it. Thanks for all your ongoing support. I’m doing a lot better than I expected!