Two Week Post-op Follow-up

This morning, at 7:30 AM, I had my two week follow-up from my surgery. We arrived on time and didn’t have to wait very long before going to the back. The nurse took a little information and sent the cast technician in to remove the splint. This took a little bit of time but nothing major and it was nice to get some freedom even though I could barely move my foot. After the splint was off they rolled me down to get an xray done which was pretty uneventful.

After getting back from the xray there was a bit more waiting for the doctor. He was already in with another patient so we just waited and my foot was starting to hurt. I still had my stitches and staples in at that point. The doctor came in, looked it over, tested that I had feeling and said everything looked good for two weeks. He then said the staples and stitches were coming out and I was going to move into a walking boot, compression sock and new arch supports. It sounds like, post surgery, I will have to always have the arch supports. I can’t see that being a major problem, just something I have to remember.

He told me a little more about the surgery he did and in the end he thought the base of the problem was nerve entrapment but since the symptoms are hard to diagnose on its own, it was best to just do all the procedures as planned. He said that the tissue surrounding my baxtars nerves was really tight so that was probably the main source of my pain. I’m actually happy to hear this because I had been suspecting a nerve problem all along.

I asked him a few questions about pain medication and such and he said it was perfectly normal to still be on pain medications at this point after surgery and gave me a refill prescription. I hope I can get off the pain medication soon but I also know they are important to the healing process and the medication he has me on is a fairly low dose and I’m not taking the higher end pain killers any more, so that’s good. He said that foot surgery is really painful (it is) and most people stay on the pain medication for awhile. The downside to this is that as long as I am on this medication, I can’t drive.

Speaking of driving, I applied for a state handicap parking permit today that will be helpful once I am back into driving. I also went down to the parking services at work and got a special parking permit that will allow me to park really close to the building. I don’t know at this point when I’ll be able to drive again but I have at least another 4 weeks of limited mobility, maybe longer.

So I now have the walking boot and he said I can begin to put some weight on it as long as it feels ok but to keep using the crutches as long as I needed. So far nothing magical happened and I’m still pretty much stuck with the crutches. I can balance a little on my left foot but walking really isn’t much of an option at this point. I’ll just have to keep working on this for the next couple weeks and I really hope to be without the crutches by the time I go back in for my next follow up on August 9th. This is when the evaluations happen and we figure out what happens next as far as rehabing. Right now he said I’m still in the healing stage so there’s not much I can do but wait.

Here’s a picture of my awesome new boot (the red part is the arch support):

If you would like to see pictures of my surgery wounds, they are here (click at your own risk).

I am happy that I can take the boot off to sleep and shower, so that makes life a lot easier, even though I can’t walk still. I’m not sure why I thought I would be off the crutches after moving into the boot but I sort of thought I would. I guess this is going to take longer but that’s ok – I can wait it out. It will be worth it once it’s healed up and I’m finally able to do the things I haven’t been able to for a long time.

Oh and as a side note, getting the staples and stitches removed wasn’t a pleasant experience. It seems that the stitches may have become a little, embedded, so she ended up cutting some skin while removing them and that hurt. The staples weren’t horrible but it did sting and I was happy when the final one was removed.

So now I focus on healing and getting back into my normal routine. It looks like I’ll be returning to work on Wednesday for a short day and then going from there. I’m getting a little too used to not working so it’ll be an adjustment but it should be fine. There’s a lot of work to get done so it will be nice to get back.