I had my 3 month post-op appointment on Monday. I am FINALLY cleared to walk barefoot/in a shoe/whatever is comfortable!! My foot looks great! It is still swollen, more so now that I am actually walking on it, but it's so exciting to see a straight toe when I look down.
All week I have been wearing Chacos or flip flops to work. Like I've said all along, now is when the pain begins. My foot literally feels like it was run over by a semi truck. Every single tiny muscle is being rebuilt and they are sore as hell. Also, the entire bone alignment and structure of my foot has been altered, so there is some pain associated with that adjustment too. The good news is that the big toe joint itself is not too painful, which was my biggest fear. Since my foot didn't hurt too much before the surgery, I was (and still am) really scared that my foot would hurt a lot or I would lose function after the surgery. Thankfully, this does not seem to be the case! When walking long distances, or when I don't feel like dealing with it - I'll still rock Das Boot.
I imagine my foot is also in some pain due to the increased aggressiveness of my stretching/rehab exercises. When I was at the doctors on Monday, he grabbed my second toe, which is kind of floating up due to having the big toe under it all of those years, and pushed it down/curled it up HARD. I was screaming OW! and almost crying from the pain. He said, "This is what you need to do. If you can't do this to yourself, I will find someone who will, and they will charge you lots of money for the privelage." Nice. So I've been abusing the hell out of my foot every night in the hopes of regaining full range of motion. This basically involves pushing my toe as far as it will go... then pushing a lot more. It kind of feels like I am trying to break my toe, but this is what I have to do to prevent too much scar tissue build up. Good times.
I'll spare you from the gross feet pics until the swelling goes down. But here are some cool x-rays!!
2 comments:
so glad that everything went so smoothly, the whole way through. you must be the best-case-scenario posterchild.
and you have screws in your feet? that looks so cool on the x-ray. i remember years ago when i had dental x-rays done, my nose ring was just kinda floating there... so weird lookin!
Yes! I do have screws in my foot. It was only supposed to be two, but apparently my foot was "extra-floppy" and needed 3 screws. And unless they start to come out (unlikely) or bother me (hopefully also unlikely) then they will be there forever!
It will be interesting to see if they set off the metal detector at the airport tomorrow!!
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