two days after hard cast removal

I didn't sleep very well last night. I just can't get comfortable since I'm used to having my foot completely supported by a hard cast. My incisions are still pretty tender so any bumping or touching them is very uncomfortable. I ended up taking my air cast off early in the morning and trying to get comfortable without it. I'm still sleeping with my little caterpillar pillow between my legs to try to keep from bumping my left foot with my right foot. It puts a little cushion there and helps support my foot.

I've been trying to move my toes as much as I can. I can flex my foot up and down a little but not side to side. I still have a lot of numbness in my whole foot and leg. It feels really strange when I try to move it. Flexing my foot up makes a pulling and tingling feeling up the back of my leg. I figure that is my Achilles tendon stretching.

I tried to put my foot down on the floor yesterday just to see how it would feel. I had my air cast on and was supporting myself with my crutches and didn't put weight on it but it made my heel hurt. My doctor told me not to start putting weight on my foot until I started PT so they could help me determine how much weight I should put on it as I strengthen it, but I just wanted to know what it would feel like to place it on the floor. I didn't like how it felt so I won't be doing that again until it is really time to do it.

I've got my air cast off today while I'm sitting so that I can just try to move it some and get it a little more flexible. I don't like the way it feels so stiff from not moving for so long. Tomorrow will be seven weeks since my surgery and that's a long time to keep it stable. Some days it doesn't seem like it's been seven weeks and sometimes it feels longer. Every day is getting better, but I told my doctor I didn't think I could do this again this year. My goal is to have my right foot done the week before spring break next year (2011) Easter is toward the end of April next year so I wouldn't have to be out of work as long as I was this year since Easter was in March this year. I'm going to talk to my boss soon to make sure she will give me the time off. I had told her I would let her know something by June so I still have a couple more weeks so see how things are going. I just want to make sure both of my feet will be good enough for me to walk all over Europe for 12 days next August (2011) with my girl scouts. My doctor told me I will still have a lot of swelling for my trip so I'll probably have to wear my braces, but I can handle swelling as long as I can keep up with them. We'll see how my healing goes with my left foot over this summer.

Cutting my hard cast off

I didn't like the feeling of her cutting my cast off. She told me that it couldn't cut me, but when I had a cast cut off of my arm a few years ago they did cut me. She told me that the thing they use now just vibrates instead of turning and there was no way for it to cut my skin. I didn't like the vibrations it made and when she got close to my incisions I could feel it and it wasn't a good feeling. I did live through it though. He had a lot of padding in there as you can see in the picture where she is cutting the gauze.
You can see in the picture where she is cutting the cast off that I was holding my leg trying to keep it from vibrating so much. I was pretty tense and trying hard NOT to pull my leg away from her.

My second Post Op appointment was three days shy of seven weeks from my surgery date. They removed my cast and said I was healing very good. His exact words were "well look at that perfect arch" That thrilled me since I have NEVER had any thing about me be perfect. They left the butterfly tape on my incisions and told me to let it fall off by itself. I told him he didn't have to worry about me pulling anything off. LOL After removing my hard cast they took me to x-ray to make sure my bone is fusing correctly. As you can see in the x-ray photo you can hardly see where he cut my bone and shifted it up. I included a photo of my heel where they put the screw in. I had been having a pain (it felt like I had stepped on a nail) in my heel for a few days. After removing my cast he found that they had accidentally left a stitch in my heel that was pulling and causing it to hurt. I feel better now that he removed that stitch.

Now if I can just get used to not having a hard cast on to protect my foot. They placed me in an air cast for at least the next five weeks and I will start PT next Monday. Not looking forward to that at all since I figure it will be uncomfortable and painful.

2nd Post op appointment

I have my second post op appointment today. I am three days shy from seven weeks since my surgery. I am REALLY nervous about this appointment because with my foot being in my hard cast it is kinda like my security blanket. I know he will be moving my foot around and I'm sure that will not only feel weird but will be a bit uncomfortable. I will be taking some Tylenol before I go to try and off set some of the pain I'm sure I'll be feeling.

They will be taking an x-ray to see if my bone has fused enough for me to go in to a air cast. He originally told me 12-16 weeks NWB and 4-8 weeks in a hard cast. I can honestly say that it will not bother me if he says I need to go back in to my hard cast for a few more weeks. I feel very safe in this one and I am quite honestly scared to come out of it. I just know that I can't hurt my foot while it's in here. I have banged it a couple of times and didn't even feel it because the hard cast was protecting it. I know that out of the cast if I bang it or hit it the wrong way I may hurt myself. Maybe I'm just being a BIG BABY, but oh well...I'm safe in this cast so booooo waaahhhh. LOL

I have had some tendon pain this week and have had to take some Tylenol a couple of times. The past few days have been pretty good. I've had some pain but nothing I can't live with. I have been a little more active...with the help of my family of course. I had the strangest feeling last night. I guess it was my nerves playing games on me. The bottom of my foot felt like it had fallen asleep and was waking up. I had the tingling feeling you get as it wakes up. It was mostly down around my heel part of my foot. I still have some numb feeling in my toes, but I'm getting more feeling in them. I guess it's just my nerves healing. It's not really a pain type feeling just an annoyance. I did have some pain in my heel yesterday. Almost as if I could feel the screw in my heel. It kinda felt like I had stepped on a nail and it went in to my heel. It was nothing I couldn't handle but it wasn't pleasant.

I'll be posting pictures of my doctors visit and how the visit went later.