First surgery

Surgery for the first foot went well so what I'm mainly interested in sharing with you guys is the recovery and the surgery for the second foot in the hopes that I've learnt from the first foot!

The op took place late on a Thursday and Friday was NOT a pleasant experience for me.  The pain was overwhelming because the timing of my nerve block and pain relief didn't overlap so my pain medication didn't kick in until after my nerve block wore off.  Not comfortable.  After dosing myself on PCA until I basically passed out I felt marginally better but the rest of Friday was pretty much a write off.

Saturday saw a visit from the physio who said if all we achieved was to stand up today then that was great.  Stand up?!  I am a healthy 27 year old, I'm sure I can do more than just stand up thank you very much.  Turns out I couldn't.  After being elevated for well over 36 hours AFTER being operated on my foot did not take well to being lowered over the edge of the bed.  Utter agony.  I managed to limp to the end of the bed on a zimmer frame and then back where I promptly collapsed into the pillows and napped for half an hour.  Exhausting.  The physio said she would return the next day.  I was not looking forward to her visit.

The whole experience spurred me into action.  I spent the rest of the day and the next morning lowering my leg out of bed at hourly intervals and lifting and lowering it from the knee.  An upshot of the out-of-bed exercise was the realization that my thigh wasn't used to the extra weight.  These simple exercises helped and by the next morning I was able to transport myself to the shower.  First shower in 3 days.  Bliss.

After this it was almost all uphill.  Monday morning I had a new cast fitted (3.5 days post-op) and got to see the foot.  I call it THE foot rather than my foot.  It looked like it belonged to Frankenstein.  I'm hoping with my posts from my second op I will be able to show you the horror.  Speaking to my consultant in the afternoon I was told this was totally normal and not to worry.  Home that afternoon and have spent the intervening week and a half getting achy from the crutches and learning to do laundry with my teeth.  Slight pain from the pins but apart from that nothing interesting to report.  Stitches out Friday.  Will let you know how it goes....