Monday, February 15, 2010

Surgery Time

Well, many of you know that I fell during the summer last year and messed my leg/ankle/foot up pretty good. I didn't really know how much damage I had done until it just did not get better. I tore tendons, muscles, messed up nerves all through my foot, ankle, and up my leg. I tried multiple treatments hoping that one of them would offer some relief. Every step I took sent excruciating pain from the bottom of my foot all the way up my leg into my calf. After 6 1/2 months of pain I told the doctor I couldn't do it anymore and it was time to FiX my leg!!!

So, on January 28th we fixed it :) My doctor was able to isolate the issues and determine what he needed to fix during the surgery. He made one incision about 3" long on the back of my leg down near my ankle and lengthened a tendon. That is what was causing the pain in my calf. You can't see the that incision very well in this picture. The second incision was on the side of my ankle and down the bottom of my foot partially that was 5" long. Here he was able to find the nerve that was trapped inside of a traumatized muscle and covered in scar tissue and free it up. He said he had estimated he would have about 2-3 locations to free up but once he got into the surgery he found 6 different locations where the nerve was trapped. In fact, on my first post-op check up he graphically described how he had his index finger shoved as deep into my foot as it would go to allow him to free up that nerve (that explains the foot tenderness!). Here are pics from my first post-op visit.



On my second post-op visit (2 weeks after surgery) you can tell the swelling has gone done significantly and I'm getting lots of pretty shades of yellow. This is just before the sutures came out. Slightly painful, extremely nerve wracking lol! Only got light headed once, of course the doc laid me back so that helped :)


Doc has given me an excellent prognosis. He says everything went great in surgery and he is extremely pleased with how it is healing! Now, if I can only survive the recovery period. Absolutely no weight bearing on this foot or leg - that means crutches and a fun knee scooter :) It also means lots of family chipping in helping out. I can't begin to express my gratitude to my kids, Craig, my parents and my sister for their countless hours of service! AmAzInG!!! So, for now, I am doing good. Just able to start driving again (for very short distances). Hoping to attempt to take the kids to school for the first time in 3 weeks this week. I will keep you posted as there are new updates!