5 Weeks P.O. - Miscellaneous

So despite the toe issues 5-weeks P.O. seems to be much the same as last time.  Incredibly bored with the whole cast affair which, possibly contrary to medical advice, I don't bother to wear around the house.  I still wear it to work but I find at home, to aid with the whole weight-bearing thing, its better to stomp around in my increasingly bloody and grubby fluffy slipper (see below).  I have, however, reached a number of important milestones.  The first was a trip from the kitchen to the front-room carrying a plate and glass entirely unaided.  The second was standing up from sitting on the floor without having to shuffle to an appropriate piece of furniture.  And the final and most exciting was putting trousers on STANDING UP rather than sitting down like an old person.  I realize these are small achievements for all you two legged people but seeing as I have done none of them in the last 5 weeks for me, I feel like I have done something.

The infamous polar bear foot!

I have found after both ops that at this point it is perfectly possible to walk unaided.  Admittedly still with a bit of a limp and not in any kind of a hurry but still, on two feet and without crutches.  The current problems only exist with bending.  Because of the 4-5week interment in the 90degree cast my ankle joint is somewhat reluctant to bend at a more acute angle which, if you think about how you walk, is entirely necessary.  Also the last phase of the gait cycle requires you to lift off from your toes.  Again, these have been pinned for a long time and are now slightly unhappy with the idea of bending so I've found sitting around manually bending each toe and standing in a calf-stretching exercise pose helps with both joints.

The only other main points of note at this point are that feet still tend to be swollen.  As you can see from a side-by-side comparison (below), the toes are still distinctly puffy.  They do become less so with my nightly foot-up and ice routine which I achieve by resting my foot on the arm of the sofa with an ice pack tied to it for half an hour.  But still, puffiness 5-weeks post surgery I am lead to believe is completely normal and fret not, it does diminish.

Just in case you needed direction...the one on the left is one I made earlier!

Final problem at this stage is a little gross and yet satisfying at the same time.  Because of the constant life in cast and the lack of leg showering (I have still not progressed out of my limbo because of toe issues...more on that to come), skin tends to not rejuvenate at a pleasant or appealing rate.  My feet do now appear to have sunburn and are peeling in quite a fun way, little sheets come off when I do my morning inspection.  This is entirely satisfying if you enjoy peeling sunburn, as many people do but just won't admit it! 

Pain-wise nothing serious to report.  I've found that more weight bearing activities tend to give me heel-ache.  This also happened last time.  It feels somewhat like your heelbone (calcaneous) is bruised, so standing on it for any length of time is not that comfortable.  This gets better over time but for the first few weeks of weight bearing at least its better to pay attention to it, if it starts aching, have a bit of a sit down!

So other than fairly gross peeliness feet are looking relatively OK, scars particularly so:

Still puffy but all under control

As a colleague pointed out this is not a flattering foot angle and may make everything seem larger than it actually is, possibly because I've just cut the edge of my ankle out of shot...

These two sets are my favourite scars...is that weird?

The two infamous toes are still causing problems.  I managed Monday and Tuesday to keep them dry and stop them oozing but then Wednesday something happened, they got damp coming out of the shower or something ridiculous and so they got cracked and disgusting and it took me all of Wednesday to get them to dry again.  They have now been dry since Wednesday evening so what I'm hoping is that they'll stay dry across the weekend and then I shall try and go castless on Monday (shhh...don't tell my surgeons), a purpose for which I bought a pair of particularly sloppy and comfortable boots.  I will let you know how this progresses...

GROSS TOES!  Not painful, just pretty disgusting!