Last Cast

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I had a lovely morning re-visiting the couch before my doctor's appointment this afternoon.  He took the stitches out  -  I snapped a photo before the extraction and after  – they are blurry because I didn't have my glasses on to see if my camera was focusing – it was not!!   (for the curious the poor quality photos are in the photo section).

I got my wish for a green cast….  it is quite a nice shade of green really – and lighter than it seems to be in the photo:

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In 2 weeks and 2 days this cast absolutely comes off ….   this is really good news!!  I will go into an air-boot then -  it is possible that I might still be on crutches though until I can put weight on my foot without pain.  But at least the air-boot can come off at night.  

The manservant promised me chocolates if I was a good girl when the stitches were being taken out.  After 4 weeks threaded in my skin it did feel as though the doctor was having to rip them out and a couple of times I winced and jerked about as it hurt.  There were no tears though so the manservant raced into a store and got these:

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Which look like this inside the box: (and taste delicious inside the mouth!).   

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I am so happy about this being the last cast that I am going to have a glass of wine tonight.  I have not had alcohol for 4 weeks and 2 days (I had to stop before the surgery)  -  I suppose I didn't notice the withdrawal symptoms with everything else going on!  ha ha.   I did clear it with my doctor considering I am still on the Lyrica but he said I deserved some – and I will have about 4 hours between imbibing and downing the drugs!    This is what I am going to drink:

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It was a good day – but it is going to be a better one on October 6th!  I never thought I would say I am looking forward to being in a cam-walker (airboot)!!!!  

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Slight relapse

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I can say with certainty that THE most important part of our body is the foot!  If something goes wrong with it, it sucks!
I may never wear heels again – as a preventative measure. 

After a couple of nights of abnormal pain (of a more intensive kind than I had been having) my doctor had me go in and he cut off the cast to have a look.  It was just as I suspected – covering stitches with a cast is just not a good idea!    The section along the side of my foot has been "weeping" and is "soft"  but not really infected.  I am going onto antibiotics anyway.

A patch, about 2" square, below my toes is dead.  The doctor called it numb.  I call it  d-e-a-d!    The hideous, stinging, burning pain goes from the second last toe (which is also dead along with the little toe) through that dead square to the outer ankle bone.  It is weird that something so dead can be feeling such pain!   The doctor assures me that it is just numb and that feeling is going to come back, but that it might take up to 6 months.   I have to say that all those screaming nerves are way past irritating!  

So, after dolloping some antibiotic cream on the stitches, a new cast was put on, my Lyrica dosage was increased and I got a script for antibiotics.   I requested a green cast today, but they had run out of that so I went back into purple. (I resisted the urge to go with pink – too much Cindy McCain). 

I can move my toes – but not much.  While I was lying on my stomach having the new cast put on the doctor asked me to wriggle my toes.  Then he repeated it.  I said "I AM"  …   LOL.   It felt like moderate movement to me but must have actually been pretty miniscule!  My homework is to keep wriggling whenever I think of it – it will help the nerves re-establish themselves and will help loosen the tendon which is going to be tight with all that stitching.

I took my camera today and took some photos of the stitches.  I don't want to gross anyone out so I won't post them here in the actual post but I will put one in the "photo" section for the ghouls or curious. 

Here is one I can share – the discarded cast.  It is sort of scary having it sawn off but the little blade will not cut skin – it quite literally will not cut skin.

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With the exception of two days after the surgery (when I was heavily bandaged & had a splint on) I have now been in a cast since July 18th !  And, I have 4 more weeks to go!     One more week off work – one more week of daytime telly! 

 

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Purple

My snazzy purple cast – and yes, my lounge room wall is also purple!

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Update

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I am walking vicariously through all of you today!  No-one has to run – a slow dawdle would be fine.

I got to see the scars this morning and then they had to lie me down and give me pills!! LOL

The astro-dweeb said it was "very impressive" and I think he felt queasy looking at it too – but they didn't lie him down and give him pills!  ha ha – he will deny it made him feel queasy -  he says he found it "interesting" ….  I guess that's the scientist in him!

I have over 50 internal stitches just on the two tendons!!!  These do not dissolve – they stay there for ever & ever.

The main incision is 8 inches long – curved like a hockey stick from the side of my foot up past my ankle.  It is also at least half an inch wide so it looks really, really hideous!!   I hardly noticed the little 2 inch incision on the top side where he did the ligament.

The funny thing is that I would be whingeing here if I only had the ligament done but now I see how wussy that would be. In comparison to the tendons it is a pinprick and I'm pretty sure I am not feeling much pain from it at all.

I now have to go onto another drug – Lyrica – to prevent nerve pain.  So between the Percocet, some codeine, the Lyrica and the shots in my stomach fat, it is a wonder I am coherent!

The doctor hid everything with a cast today – I got purple this time – a little more cheery than the black.  I can not believe how painful this is -  I even said to the doctor today "wow, I had 3 kids without pain relief & they didn't hurt this much'.  It is like my foot is covered in crawling stinging ants and someone is giving me a really, really severe ongoing Chinese burn at the same time!

Might be awhile before I am up and training for the London Olympics!!

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Yesterday

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Yesterday was such a fun day!   No interesting taxi ride to work for me……  instead the astro-dweeb rented a car and drove me  to the hospital.  A friend at work lent me her GPS thingy so we wouldn't get lost as we don't have a good record of getting to places straight off!  

My nurse led us to a cubicle where I was given my gorgeous hospital gown with the obligatory broken off strings at the back,  a "party" hat and a groovy pair of socks with non-slip white bubbles on the bottom.  I got to leave my knickers on – which makes sense as they were operating on my foot -  and given a non-co-ordinating second gown to use as a robe.   Then I got to lie in a high-tech recliner waiting for the anesthetist and the doctor to talk to me.

We were able to hear patients around us.  One deaf old guy had to have all his forms read out very loudly to him -  he was having a cystoscopy.  He told them that he did not want anesthesia as he was driving himself home. They said he couldn't do that but he insisted that he was very tough and in the end they agreed but they read out a lot more papers absolving them from everything if he crashed on the way home. 

There was a woman having bunions done and she was demanding that her husband ask for valium to relax her.  He said "ask yourself" …   she did.

I told the astro-dweeb I was going to ask for some valium too….  and I did; the anesthetist said he could hand them out like candy but he thought I looked calm enough to do without.  My doctor came in, cut off the cast and explained what he was going to do and then told me that I was going to have to inject something everyday into the subcutaneous fat of my stomach to prevent blood clots.  Ah, no, no, no,   I'm not going to do that!  

"Well", he says "you could end up in a pine box" .. 

Me:   "I won't know if I'm in a box, but I will know if I break a needle off in my stomach!"

Now I need  a valium!

After begrudgingly agreeing to self inject I was wheeled away into the operating room.

Electrode type things were put on my chest and neck to monitor my pulse and they had just put the drip in when my doctor appeared.  I said "hey, I shouldn't be seeing you – don't start cutting yet!"

The next thing I know someone is asking "how do you feel?"

My first words:   Hurting!   It hurts!!

I was fortified with Demorol and Percoset and allowed to come home after a couple of hours. I  have an humongous bandage on my leg with a shield of fibroglass along the back of my calf and over my heel. 

The doctor told the astro-dweeb that the damage was much more extensive than he thought   – there were actually TWO torn tendons and the ligament to repair and that the tendons were more "shredded" than just torn.  One of them was so bad it was on the point of rupturing.  

I'm thinking that I must be a pretty tough old bird to have been walking around with this for so long!!

  

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