monday, Monday, MONDAY!!!!! This cast comes off on Monday!
I absolutely positively cannot wait to get this cast off my leg!! I know that I will be going directly into a walking boot and will still use crutches but just the thought of being free from this cast is enough to put a perm-a-grin on my face.
Ok..of all the gross stuff...but if anyone reading this is about to have the same procedure done, this will happen to you as well.
Last night I was doing a dry skin check on my toes. Typically to keep them looking presentable and not causing any offending odor, I will take a well wringed out washcloth and clean as much of my toes as I can. I learned that any lotion on this skin will actually make the skin look more dry and flakey. Yuck... A wet washcloth will provide just enough scrubbing action to remove most of the dry skin that can accumulate overnight.
Well...last night I was checking out my toes and as I lifted my toes up I could see the former calluses on the ball of my foot. Of course I had to pick at one of them. The layers are deep and I recommend anyone doing this to keep a vacuum close by. Peeling the skin is rather addicting but on the downside, any fragments of old dry callus that happen to stick to the lining of the cast will come back to haunt you later on. I discovered this while at work. It feels like any sharp object jabbing into the foot. Ouch!
I will update on Monday or Tuesday. I am debating on whether or not to take a picture of my hairy leg as my cast is removed. I suppose I should but I just know it will be rather hideous to look at. The surgeon did joke about my leg hair status at my last appointment. I have yet to decide on this.
Till next time!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Day 42 post op
Today was my first day back to work. Ok...there are people there that will totally drive me insane on a daily basis but today was just another one of those moments where they make me laugh.
I crutch down the aisle to my cubicle and the really noisy girl and her noisy neighbor stand up to see me. The comment that came out of one of their mouths was, "Oh my gosh, you're still on crutches, should you really be at work yet?" To which I couldn't help to reply with, "I am capable of working, I just can't walk. Last time I checked, I didn't need my feet to process insurance claims." Of course they thought I was being funny but in reality I was trying hard to hold back some word vomit. I had more to say but figured it was best left alone with the comment I made.
So...work went well. I was rather rusty as six weeks of not doing my work tends to make one forget things. I forgot how to look up pricing schedules for vision claims, I forgot how to read my home health care charts, I was a mess. Two more days and I should be fine but today I was just tired. I had fallen into a habit of taking a little nap before my boys would come home from a half day at daycare. Well today I wasn't trying to break that cycle. I made it though. Barely.
My foot held up fine. It's getting colder outside and I decided to cut a sock up so my toes could have some coverage. While this is a great idea and all...I can't stand the feel of a baggy sock on my toes....I had to keep tucking it into my cast so that it felt normal to me. I swear my little peeves are just stupid. Anyway I did get some swelling action going, I could feel my ankle filling up my cast by the afternoon. Sure I can elevate it to hip level, but that only does so much.
I did start taking ibuprofen for work just to stay on top of what any swelling in there will do. Oh..and today I started getting the oddest sensation on the back of my leg. Throughout today I was getting this icy cold sensation in my Achilles region. I know that nothing spilled, dropped or crawled in there but where the cast is formed a little tighter around my ankle, I kept feeling like that one area was cold and wet. How odd is that???
Other than all that, my crutches are driving me insane and making my sides rather raw where they rub. I was supposed to have a knee walker by the time I returned to work but there seems to be a huge lack of money in the household. School supplies, groceries, bills and a super short paycheck that I have been contributing just aren't enough for trivial things like knee walkers. Oh well. 19 more days till the cast is off. I still can't find my walking boot and I was out at storage yesterday helping with my jeep hard top installation for fall/winter. I never saw the boot out there and have a feeling that it was just never returned from the kid that borrowed it. Most likely it was returned and my husband just didn't take it out of his vehicle until he needed more space and tossed it in the trash. I wouldn't put it past him to do that....it wouldn't have been the first time either. Lovely huh???
Alright it's 9:30 and I normally never turn in this early but I did fall my prep stuff for the morning and I am just plain worn out. It would have been nice to return to half days of work to transition into my normal schedule but it is what it is and I'm beat for the day. I will be getting up nice and early to do my leg raises and donkey kicks and get to work by 6 am.
Toodles!
I crutch down the aisle to my cubicle and the really noisy girl and her noisy neighbor stand up to see me. The comment that came out of one of their mouths was, "Oh my gosh, you're still on crutches, should you really be at work yet?" To which I couldn't help to reply with, "I am capable of working, I just can't walk. Last time I checked, I didn't need my feet to process insurance claims." Of course they thought I was being funny but in reality I was trying hard to hold back some word vomit. I had more to say but figured it was best left alone with the comment I made.
So...work went well. I was rather rusty as six weeks of not doing my work tends to make one forget things. I forgot how to look up pricing schedules for vision claims, I forgot how to read my home health care charts, I was a mess. Two more days and I should be fine but today I was just tired. I had fallen into a habit of taking a little nap before my boys would come home from a half day at daycare. Well today I wasn't trying to break that cycle. I made it though. Barely.
My foot held up fine. It's getting colder outside and I decided to cut a sock up so my toes could have some coverage. While this is a great idea and all...I can't stand the feel of a baggy sock on my toes....I had to keep tucking it into my cast so that it felt normal to me. I swear my little peeves are just stupid. Anyway I did get some swelling action going, I could feel my ankle filling up my cast by the afternoon. Sure I can elevate it to hip level, but that only does so much.
I did start taking ibuprofen for work just to stay on top of what any swelling in there will do. Oh..and today I started getting the oddest sensation on the back of my leg. Throughout today I was getting this icy cold sensation in my Achilles region. I know that nothing spilled, dropped or crawled in there but where the cast is formed a little tighter around my ankle, I kept feeling like that one area was cold and wet. How odd is that???
Other than all that, my crutches are driving me insane and making my sides rather raw where they rub. I was supposed to have a knee walker by the time I returned to work but there seems to be a huge lack of money in the household. School supplies, groceries, bills and a super short paycheck that I have been contributing just aren't enough for trivial things like knee walkers. Oh well. 19 more days till the cast is off. I still can't find my walking boot and I was out at storage yesterday helping with my jeep hard top installation for fall/winter. I never saw the boot out there and have a feeling that it was just never returned from the kid that borrowed it. Most likely it was returned and my husband just didn't take it out of his vehicle until he needed more space and tossed it in the trash. I wouldn't put it past him to do that....it wouldn't have been the first time either. Lovely huh???
Alright it's 9:30 and I normally never turn in this early but I did fall my prep stuff for the morning and I am just plain worn out. It would have been nice to return to half days of work to transition into my normal schedule but it is what it is and I'm beat for the day. I will be getting up nice and early to do my leg raises and donkey kicks and get to work by 6 am.
Toodles!
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Day 38 post op
It's Labor Day weekend and I will be returning to work on Wednesday. I still have swelling in my foot/ankle when I stay upright for longer periods of time but it does ease up inside the cast when I can elevate to hip level.
I have been off Ibuprofen for two weeks now and my pain levels have been extremely low. I have noticed with periods of elevation when my cast is its loosest that I will get an aching in my heel. At times it can be a rather stabbing pain but overall it is only there when I can move fluid out of the joint. I also have some pain just above the lateral malleolus that is located right on the tendons that have been joined together. This is exactly why I went off ibuprofen...I wanted to give my kidneys a rest but more importantly I wanted to be able to have an accurate mapping of my pain. Had it been more painful, I never would have stopped taking it. Most likely I will resume when I return to work to ease up any inflammation.
I still cannot move my pinkie toe laterally. I am a bit bummed over that. My little toe will only curl at this point and I realize I should be happy that I can still feel touch to my toe. At this point I am counting down the days to when this cast is removed. I cannot wait scratch (and shave) this leg.
I am doing my little floor workouts regularly and straight leg raises are not helping to maintain my quads...my left thigh is feeling a bit weak and mushy when compared to the right. I hope I can build it all back up again.
OK...I will report back when I return to work. Yay! Adult interaction has been missed.
I have been off Ibuprofen for two weeks now and my pain levels have been extremely low. I have noticed with periods of elevation when my cast is its loosest that I will get an aching in my heel. At times it can be a rather stabbing pain but overall it is only there when I can move fluid out of the joint. I also have some pain just above the lateral malleolus that is located right on the tendons that have been joined together. This is exactly why I went off ibuprofen...I wanted to give my kidneys a rest but more importantly I wanted to be able to have an accurate mapping of my pain. Had it been more painful, I never would have stopped taking it. Most likely I will resume when I return to work to ease up any inflammation.
I still cannot move my pinkie toe laterally. I am a bit bummed over that. My little toe will only curl at this point and I realize I should be happy that I can still feel touch to my toe. At this point I am counting down the days to when this cast is removed. I cannot wait scratch (and shave) this leg.
I am doing my little floor workouts regularly and straight leg raises are not helping to maintain my quads...my left thigh is feeling a bit weak and mushy when compared to the right. I hope I can build it all back up again.
OK...I will report back when I return to work. Yay! Adult interaction has been missed.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Day 22 post op
Ugh!!!! The soft material inside my cast has shifted. It is all bunched up around my ankle and feels like a sock that you just can't pull up from inside a winter boot. I have managed to squish some of the padding back down so my toes stop turning purple but I do need to call the ortho department tomorrow and see what they want me to do. It wouldn't be so bad if I couldn't feel the hard surface of the casting material on my heel.
Oh...a couple nights ago I was crutching around in the dark as I just shut the lights off and was heading into the kitchen before bed when I placed my good foot on what I thought was a bug. I ended up stepping straight on my left heel and it felt like an electric shock had gone right up my heel and into my lower leg. I reached over to the wall and flipped on a light switch only to see that I stepped on a stretched out Slinky. The way the plastic coil rolled under my foot really did feel like a multi legged creature of sorts. I ended up taking Ibuprofen and heading to bed with some pain.
Onto other news. Yesterday I finally started exercising. Since cutting out most all dairy, pops, artificial sweeteners and most things high fat from my diet, I have dropped just under 20 pounds since a week prior to surgery. I figured that I need to keep up the weight loss and kill some time during my days by exercising.
I am doing straight leg lifts in all directions, donkey kicks, co-contractions for quads and hams, push ups, bent over rows and cardio. Yes!!! Cardio without the use of my left foot. Here's the deal. The pictures are on purpose. Way back when I was a student athletic trainer at Wayne State College in Nebraska, I was fortunate to learn sports medicine under Keith Goetz, ATC. Everyone seemed to have a nickname for Keith but I still think "Go Go Gadget Goetz" was the most appropriate. Here's why. See the first pic at the top of my blog? It's an upright bike with the handlebars in the stationary position. If you tilt it back on it's seat and stand, it becomes a UBE, an upper body ergometer. UBE's are rather expensive and so I had to use whatever was laying around.
In college, Keith used to make us work with the budget and recycle things or re purpose items in order to allow the athletes to be treated and rehabilitated from injuries properly. For example, when we needed portable water supplies for practices, some of the student trainers worked with Keith to take old desk drawers from a storage area (now the new and improved stadium at WSC), cut the drawers down to fit a battery source and a pump, place this structure on a standard hand truck or dolly, strap on a water cooler with hoses and voila.... a portable water squirter that we could roll into the recreation center or outside to any practice that didn't have outdoor water supply. I still have some slicky pants with battery acid burns on the front hip and thigh.
Another example was wobble boards. These things are spendy!!! Keith cut a circle out of a board, cut a croquet ball in half and stuck it to the bottom. There was some sort of plastic tubing attached to the underside of the board as well which served as a bit of a cushion. Yeah...if we really needed a piece of equipment, it had to be something old that was re purposed. Good upper back/shoulder exercise would be to kneel on the floor behind a stair master machine and use your hands to press the pedals down. We did that, too. Funny thing is that most of the alternative workouts that I learned in the rehab room at WSC, I used at one time or another or got creative and devised my own killer workout for a client at Bally Total Fitness. It was a great experience I have to say. Thanks Keith.
So anyway, 20 minutes a day on my UBE and I will be able to stand my bike up correctly after this cast comes off for good.
I will be calling tomorrow morning about my ill fitting cast.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Day 19 post op
So...Friday the 13th I got to tell my doc that I fell multiple times while in my splint. Luckily he was pleased with the status of my healing. Yay! I did no damage!!! From the pics above you can see my incisions prior to having the stitches out (oh thank goodness as the ends of the sutures was the "bug in the splint" feeling I kept getting. I took a picture of my medial foot as the color was a deep dark purple and has faded nicely. My X-ray image shows where my surgeon cut my heel bone to remove a wedge. The hardware will be permanent. I read about other surgeries where the screw needed to be removed after the bone healed sufficiently. I asked my doctor about this and he said that he did not feel this one should ever give me problems. He countersunk it so once the bone heals over the end, I will never ever notice it. Should I ever take up running or any other activities, this screw will still not be noticed. That's nice to know. Even if he lied to me at this point...I feel that the mental process is enough for me to never have a problem.
During my appointment I explained to one of the nurses that I wasn't on any pain relievers whatsoever. She said that it was rather impressive. Really?? It has been two weeks and other than a small amount of aching in my heel, I was doing just fine. She said that most people with this same surgery will still come in on narcotics for their suture removal and casting. I guess I'm impressive with my pain tolerance. Who knew? Wonder why a stubbed toe is like death to me, then. Anyway my doctor took a moment to press into the bottom of my foot to demonstrate my new non supinated ankle position. OK...THAT brought me to tears. I should have had some ibuprofen before my appointment. Fortunately the aching subsided and I was fine by the time I drove home. I also had to ask my doc why my pinky toe is dead. He could see that I could curl it but I lost all other function to move it laterally. He said that he did not cut the sural nerve, rather he moved it up and then moved it down to work around it. Sometimes the stretching and moving around will irritate it just enough to damage it. He also added, it could simply be the swelling present in my ankle that is affecting the nerve supply. I can feel touch to my pinky toe, I just can't move it to the side as the muscle that controls that action is fed by the sural nerve. He said that only time will tell if the nerve recovers but any and all normal function of my foot will not be altered. I will just have little to no sensation alone the outside of my foot and will have to rely on toe separators when polishing my nails..haha.
Since Friday I have been happy with my cast. It is a non walking cast as I am to resume non weight bearing until September 27th when my cast is to be removed. I will then be placed in a walking boot (mental note...gotta find the cam walker I loaned out last year...I don't want to shell out another 50 bucks when I have one laying around somewhere already). Still the cast is light weight and I have some wiggle room in there which probably means I have lost a little more swelling in the ankle. Either that or I have "broken in" my cast. The person who put it on said that would happen. If it gets too loose I will need to have it replaced. So far...I like the looseness I have since it helps relieve those itchy episodes.
It is finally cooler outside which means I am back in my own apartment and can start exercising. Wait till you see what I figured out!!!!
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Day 15 post op
Yay, 2 weeks down, only 6 or so more to go without walking. Ugh! I wanted to start exercising this week but it has been so hot an humid that I haven't been in my own apartment for the entire week. Luckily our nasty weather only lasts for about 2 weeks; I will be home soon. I have only done some straight leg lifts on a daily basis. I want to do more.
This week I have been out of my mind with my splint and my sutures. I gave my primary doc a call to see if i could get my splint rewrapped as it slides all around during the day and night but my doc said that he didn't want to mess with anything as I see the surgeon on
Friday (tomorrow morning).
My pain level as been tolerable with ibuprofen, I do get some occasional aching in my heel or a sharp stabbing pain at the top of my incision. The most I can do is suck it up until it goes away as there is no bleeding through, no fever and my toes are of normal color. I find that even while my foot is elevated all night, I wake up with tightness in my splint (the lateral side is curved in and it digs into my incision line). There is so much wiggle room in my splint but in the mornings I cannot slide the splint until I sit up and move a bit.
Other than that I did drive this week. I had to go to my apartment and pick a few things up (as much as I could safely use crutches with a backpack). It is funny to drive my husband's vehicle as it is an automatic and my own is a manual. I rarely drive anything but my own jeep and everytime I come to a stop in his, I have a moment where I think I have forgotten to shift into neutral.
Tomorrow I head to Duluth for my sutures to be checked and for the doc to possibly put a cast on my leg. I hope to grab a pic or two.
This week I have been out of my mind with my splint and my sutures. I gave my primary doc a call to see if i could get my splint rewrapped as it slides all around during the day and night but my doc said that he didn't want to mess with anything as I see the surgeon on
Friday (tomorrow morning).
My pain level as been tolerable with ibuprofen, I do get some occasional aching in my heel or a sharp stabbing pain at the top of my incision. The most I can do is suck it up until it goes away as there is no bleeding through, no fever and my toes are of normal color. I find that even while my foot is elevated all night, I wake up with tightness in my splint (the lateral side is curved in and it digs into my incision line). There is so much wiggle room in my splint but in the mornings I cannot slide the splint until I sit up and move a bit.
Other than that I did drive this week. I had to go to my apartment and pick a few things up (as much as I could safely use crutches with a backpack). It is funny to drive my husband's vehicle as it is an automatic and my own is a manual. I rarely drive anything but my own jeep and everytime I come to a stop in his, I have a moment where I think I have forgotten to shift into neutral.
Tomorrow I head to Duluth for my sutures to be checked and for the doc to possibly put a cast on my leg. I hope to grab a pic or two.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Day 12 post op
Yay..I am nearly done with week 2 and I haven't fallen again. That right there is an accomplishment. I still feel rather worthless around the house. It is Monday and the little boys are in daycare till noon so I have a little time to just do whatever. I am going to be living for Monday thru Friday for a few weeks now. I love my boys and all....but man are they just a handful. Yesterday I got up to use the bathroom and when I returned to the living room I found one boy on the dog kennel and the other on a table...they were couch diving.
My foot is sore...the bruising on the top aches right now. Touching the bruised part on the top of my foot causes some pain. The bruise on my left hip has darkened considerably, too. Makes my husband feel bad...I can live with that for a little bit.
My splint is killing my foot, too. The incisions will stick and pull and wow does that ever hurt. I also get some odd nerve sensations from my heel to my small toe. It often feels as if there is a bug of some sort in my splint. I know there isn't one, I have looked for it through the sides of my bandages but my imagination and this sensation is just too much to deal with sometimes.
I keep thinking that I should call my clinic and get this thing rewrapped.
My foot is sore...the bruising on the top aches right now. Touching the bruised part on the top of my foot causes some pain. The bruise on my left hip has darkened considerably, too. Makes my husband feel bad...I can live with that for a little bit.
My splint is killing my foot, too. The incisions will stick and pull and wow does that ever hurt. I also get some odd nerve sensations from my heel to my small toe. It often feels as if there is a bug of some sort in my splint. I know there isn't one, I have looked for it through the sides of my bandages but my imagination and this sensation is just too much to deal with sometimes.
I keep thinking that I should call my clinic and get this thing rewrapped.
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