One week survival in hard cast

Well I have survived one week in my hard cast. I have had good times and bad times, but it gets a little easier each day that passes. The hardest part about being in the hard cast is when my nerves twinge and twitch. There have been a couple of times that it actually felt like I had a bug crawling around inside my cast biting me. My doctor says it's just my nerves playing games with me. I still occasionally feel like someone is sticking pins in my toes and my foot. I can't get used to that because each time it happens it catches me off guard so I jump and squeal. LOL Michael and Kinlie have gotten used to it, but my mom still gets all "what's wrong?" It tends to happen more at night than anytime, but it does happen through out the day. I also have a sensation that my new tendon is jumping in my foot. It feels like when your eye jumps and you can't get it to stop. I'm not sure if it's really my tendon I feel or the nerves around it. All I know is that it's aggrivating.

I was so excited because I was able to FINALLY lay on my side for a while Saturday night. I am NOT a back sleeper so I have had a hard time having to sleep on my back for the last few weeks. I actually had to put pillows under my shoulders on either side so I would not try to roll over in my sleep. I have to put a pillow between my legs and rest my leg on that pillow to keep my cast leg straight. It takes me a while to get comfortable, but I have been able to sleep like that for a little while each night since then. Last night (Sunday night) I had a harder time getting comfortable, but I took my pain meds and finally my pain eased enough so that I could lay in a way I wasn't hurting as bad.

I did survive an out of town dance competition this past weekend. One reason I wanted to hold off on my surgery was because I didn't want to have it in the middle of dance competition season. It just got to the point I couldn't wait any longer so I sat Kinlie down and talked to her about me not being able to help her get ready for her dances. I am so proud of her because she did a great job at getting herself ready without loosing anything. The trip there and back was not as bad as the trip to Kentucky I took a couple of weeks ago. We only had to drive about two hours. Our hotel was nice and at least they had an elevator this time. They were a little more handicap friendly than the last hotel. My main problem and pain came when I had to sit in the auditorium for a few hours at a time. In all of the years Kinlie has danced I haven't missed one of her competitions yet and I didn't plan on missing one this time. When it comes to your kids sometimes you just have to do what you have to do....so I did...hahaha.

When we got to the auditorium one of the people that worked there told us that the aisles that were missing a seat on the end were for people in wheelchairs...well that's nice, except that by the time we got there all of those rows had people in them already. We ended up in an aisle behind a wheel chair accessible aisle so I sat in one of the auditorium seats and propped my foot on a backpack, dance bag blankets and pillows we brought in. Saturday was not as bad because Kinlie's dances were close together and I left as soon as she finished dancing. I went back to the hotel to lay down and elevate my foot. Now Sunday was a different story. I did wait until right before her first dance to go to the auditorium, but she had more dances and they were spread out longer for the day...then I had to get in the car and ride home. My foot swelled up pretty bad on Sunday so I did end up having to take pain meds when I got home. I have been trying to only take medicine at night when I absolutely need it.

I also volunteered at the school today. I actually felt good because it was the first productive thing I have done since my surgery almost four weeks ago. I had kids asking me if they could sign my cast...lol....I just thought I was too old for people to sign my cast. hahaha It made me feel good they cared and wanted to sign it. I'm supposed to volunteer at eighth grade day on Friday so I'm hoping for the best and praying that things will go smoothly with no problems. The main thing I'm concerned about is that it is supposed to be outside and I'm hoping I can get around outside in my wheelchair. I'm also worried about it being hot with this hard cast on me. I'm gonna stay positive and hope for the best. : )

Stitches out....new cast on

These pictures are out of order but if you start from the bottom you can see that I had a little friend that also has a cast LOL The cast room had a little stuffed animal that had a cast on it's arm...so cute. I also have pictures of my splint cast as she is taking it off. You can see her taking my stitches out of my foot and then applying butterfly tape before they applied my new hard cast. I had to put my foot on a metal support that helped keep my arch as he was putting my cast on. I think my scars look pretty good so far. Now I have four weeks in my hard cast then they will take another x-ray to make sure everything is looking good. If everything is looking good I may get to go into the air cast and start pt. I kinda dread that but hopefully it won't be too bad.

Stitches out...New Cast

I got my stitches out yesterday. I was so very nervous about a lot of things. I was unsure how it would feel to finally have my foot unwrapped after it has been stable for almost three weeks. It did feel VERY WEIRD to have it free from all the gauze and bandages that had been there since surgery. It wasn't as painful as it was uncomfortable. It felt very strange for them to be moving my foot around after it had not moved for so long.

I sat up and watched while she cut the gauze but when she started to take everything off I had to lay down. I'm the type person that doesn't mind needles (They're not my favorite things but I don't freak out if I have to have one) but I DON'T want to see them or watch them being put in to me. I just didn't think I could look at all the stitches in my foot. Better yet I didn't think i could watch her take them out. The best way I knew how to avoid looking was to lay down so I couldn't see. Michael took pictures of the whole thing so I did get the courage to look at the pictures after we left the doctors office.

It did sting a little on some of the stitches she took out. Not all of them, but some of them. For some reason it was mostly the ones on the outside of my foot. After she took out my stitches (I only had 10...wow I thought I would have had more) she rubbed medicine on my incisions to make sure they didn't get infected. I have NEVER been ticklish on my feet and I told Kris (my doctors assistant) that I never had that problem. As she was rubbing the medicine in to my incisions I was wiggling around and laughing. It really tickled. I had her laughing too. When she finished rubbing it on it hit me....oh man that stings!!! LOL She told me that it was probably stinging where the medicine was going down in to the holes where she had removed the stitches. That only lasted I'm sure for a few seconds, but it was like putting alcohol on a cut so I'm sure more aggravating than anything.

After she finished cleaning my incisions she placed butterfly tape on them. She said that was extra security. As she was doing that she asked me to choose what color cast I wanted. I asked her it she do a tie die cast. LOL She said unfortunately she couldn't. OH WELL...that's ok because my favorite color is purple so that is what I picked.

My doctor came in and looked at my foot and told me it's looking very good and healing up nicely. YAY...that's good news for me because usually if something can go wrong it does so with me. I was very glad to hear that I was on track in my healing process. He had me put my foot on a metal support to make sure that as the cast was curing it would keep my arch (which by the way is a very nice arch which I have NOT had in quite some time). That was not the most comfortable thing to do since nothing but gauze has touched my foot for some time.

This cast is quite different from my other one I had after surgery. My toes were exposed in the splint cast, but they are covered with this one. Since I hate shoes because of that fact this one is very uncomfortable for me. I told myself I could handle it for the next four weeks and I thought I may be able to. The problem is that I broke the outside bone on my foot several years ago and my small toe does not sit right. My doctor told me when he saw my x-ray he took on my first appointment that he could see where I broke it. I told him I had always had problems with it and he said it healed short (whatever that means) My small toe has always poked up for some reason and I have a HARD time finding shoes that don't aggravate me. Well now that I have this cast pressing on that toe it is VERY UNCOMFORTABLE. I kept trying to move my toes last night to get it comfortable, but nothing was working. The way the cast is sitting I can't move my toes freely at all. I have to actually move my last few toes with my hands. If I could have cut this thing off of me I would have. I begged Michael to just cut my toes out so they could be exposed but he wouldn't LOL I have left a message with Kris this morning in hopes they may be able to get me in and fix this. Yay....just got a call back and I have to bear with it until tomorrow morning but at least they could get me in to change it. My appointment is at 8:30. Lord help me make it until tomorrow morning without cutting this thing off of me. : )

busy weekend

I have had quite a busy weekend and paid for it last night. I spent the day (Saturday) in my wheel chair down stairs for most of the day. We are remodeling our down stairs kitchen and I wanted to be down there supervising. LOL I also took two trips to Lowe's with my husband and a trip to Moe's (a restaurant). I even bragged to one of our friends that we ran in to that I had been sleeping OK....well the reason I had been sleeping pretty good is because I had not been doing anything during the day so my foot was not swelling very bad. I took my meds to try to go to sleep last night and that didn't even work. I was miserable all night. I did only take one oxycodone (instead of two and a phenergan). I kept waking myself up all night trying to get my foot comfortable, but I just could NOT get comfortable.



I stayed in bed late today in hopes that I would make it through my Granny's family reunion. It was kinda hard and my foot swelled up like a puffer fish but I did it. Then when we came home I sat on our back porch for a while. It was so relaxing listening to the creek running through our back yard. I sat on the back porch trying to figure out how I could get down to the creek in my wheel chair. It's not possible because it would be a very bumpy ride. I just wanted to stick my one good foot in the water. One day I'll get there again.

Two weeks Post op

I am two weeks post op today. It has been a while since I posted anything so I have had several things happen since I last wrote anything.

I took a trip to Kentucky for Easter to see my husbands family. It was not an easy trip to make but I did get through it. I got to see my son who lives in Illinois who I miss terribly. I also got to hold my new grand baby (who lives in Texas) for the first time and that made the painful trip worth all the pain I endured.

I was lucky that I didn't have to make the trip all at one time. My dad has a house in Tennessee that is half way between our house in SC and my father in law's house in Kentucky. We left Thursday afternoon for Tennessee. On the way we stopped to eat. Since this was my first time out of the house I was very nervous to be in public since my surgery for the first time. I had a wonderful pizza at a cute pizza restaurant in Tryon NC. I was very uncomfortable while sitting. I did keep my leg elevated on my wheel chair but the way I was sitting was pulling at my Achilles tendon which made me very uncomfortable. After dinner I thought I should go to the rest room before we got back on the road. Like I said this restaurant was very cute but NOT wheel chair friendly so Michael had to bring in my crutches. They had very uneven (pretty but not very safe) brick flooring. The restroom door was too small to fit my wheel chair in so I had to crutch it in to the restroom. I may be wrong but I thought that every public facility across the country had to be wheel chair friendly or at least handicap friendly. This place was NOT either. Thank goodness Kinlie was there to help me get in to the bath room stall because there was no rail and like I said the floor was very unstable. I did survive but not without being in a lot of pain and VERY nervous.

We made sure to pack PLENTY of pillows and blankets that I could rest my foot on. I drive a fairly new suburban that has bucket seats as the middle seats. I started out with my foot extended across to the other seat. This was very uncomfortable. I tried to take my medicine thinking that I would be able to sleep on the drive there. Since this is a very curvy ride my foot kept sliding around. This made me tense all over and there was no sleep for me. We got smarter the next day and decided that it may be more comfortable for me to lay my seat back and extend my foot to the middle console between the two front seats. This was a much better plan as it was not totally comfortable but much more comfortable than the previous plan.

Needless to say I did make it there and back. It was a very painful trip and had it not been for getting to see my son and gran baby I would not try it again but I did have fun.

The swelling in my foot goes down a good bit at night while I'm sleeping. two days ago when I started moving around (by moving around I mean getting up to potty then back to bed with my foot elevated) my foot started to swell again. I don't have a lot of room in my cast to move, but what little room I do have my foot shifted (just enough) and when it swelled back up it was pressing on a nerve. OMGosh was this so painful. I thought I was going to have to call the doctor to have him take off my cast. If I could have gotten it off myself I think I would have taken it off just to get relief. I spent a big part of the night putting my leg up in the air just to get relief so the pressure was not touching my nerve. I am also having a lot more pins & needles feelings in my foot and my toes so with that along with the nerve pain it was NOT a good day and night. By pins and needles I mean it literally feels like someone is putting pins and needles into my skin. With all of that put together my foot was just jumping around like it had a mind of it's own. If it had not been so painful it would have actually been funny. My nurse did tell me this would happen because not only did my foot go through a lot of trauma, but they had to work with a lot of nerves while doing my surgery.

When I woke up the next morning I had relief and my cast was not on the nerve. Now that I know that can happen I make sure that as my foot is swelling during the day I'm not moving a lot as to make sure my foot doesn't shift to the wrong spot again. Definitely DON'T want anything inside the cast pressing on a nerve again.