6 Months P.O. Nothing to declare

So my toe issues continue. I managed to grab a part as an extra, contrary to my normal scientific life, and got out on a film set for the day. This allowed me my first venture into heels. Not comfortable heels but sad 1920s period heels. Actually felt relatively stable with the new tendon placement but the lack of toe bendyness hindered me somewhat. I have had a date through to fix said toe issues and to whip out the heel pin but it landed right in the middle of a week when I'm away for work (sod's law) so I shall have to rearrange. Its strictly a day job so I'm told will be no hassle so I shall update you as and when...

5 Months P.O. New Year New You blah blah blah...some notes on exercise

Its home truths time people. I am a person prone to expand. In order not to expand I must not overindulge in the chocolate department and do some regular exercise. A downside of this surgery is that not only can you not really exercise to your full capacity but that when you are in hospital/recovering people bring you chocolate. Not a great combo on the expansion front.

As of the beginning of the week I resolved to return to my pre-op weight (approximately a stone less than my current weight) so have set myself a somewhat rigorous exercise regime that started tonight with an hours worth of aerobics. As much as she may rub many people up the wrong way with her persistent perkiness I am a big fan of the Davina workout DVDs, I can embarrass myself in front of the TV with nobody watching and, possibly more importantly, all the exercises are explained so you don't do yourself (further) injury. There is also, handily, a low impact version of all the cardiac work. 

Being somewhat of a wimp, this being my first set of aerobics after this op, I voted to go with the low impact most of the way through. I finally plucked up the courage to do some higher impact at the end and can report no major problems. Ever so slight ache in both heels at the osteotomy site as well as a general loss of 'spring' when having to do things like bounce from one foot to the other but I expect these will recover in time.

Still stuck in the trainers for the time being but pin removal time I hope is imminent. I'll keep you updated...

4 Months P.O. - An Update and An Apology...

So I need to start by making many apologies. Firstly, if you've been reading and I haven't been posting, I am sorry, there was nothing exciting to report so I thought I'd keep quiet. My second apology is two-fold and comes as the result of my check-up appointment this morning. I was informed by a mildly upset Mr Cooke that I had constantly referred to the 'Lovely Mr Rogers' in my blogs and had not only mentioned him very little but also never referred to him as lovely. So I send my apologies out into the ether to the obviously adorable Mr Cooke but also to Mr Rogers who is now apparently called the 'Lovely Mr Rogers' by Mr Cooke.

This morning was supposed to be my last check up but I have been having issues with the head of the not inconsiderable screw (see photo below) in my right heel which is irritating me. I was informed, however, that it is a swift and relatively pain/issue free op to remove it so that's all booked in.

Other than that the new feet progress well. I am fully mobile and active, have not sadly done as much exercise as perhaps I would have liked but did a considerable amount of walking recently on a work related trip with no major issues. I also, joy of joys, tried on a pair of ballet pumps. Anyone who has met me will realize I was never meant to actually DO ballet but I enjoy the idea of a slip-on shoe that is flat but my previous issue with this design was that because my toes curled when I lifted my foot up they would simply cause my whole foot to slip out of the shoe at the front end. Not an ideal situation. HOWEVER, my new fun toes mean they don't curl when lifting so I can now wear said shoe-type with relative ease. Now the only trouble is finding a pair I actually like!

Side X-Ray, left foot. Nice screw to hold the heel together, pin on lower ankle to hold the re-positioned tibialis posterior in place, staple type thing to do something or other with the first metatarsal bone and pin in big toe better on the pic below...

Top X-Ray, left foot. Better view of staple in metatarsal bone as well as nice one of the big toe pin. Also, just visible are small pins holding the newly positioned toe tendons down at the very ends of each metatarsal

Before and After

I thought it was about time I changed my xray pic to a before and after shot so here goes...this is the one I took in the hospital before I had the second op.  As you can see, the toes are BEAUTIFULLY straight and the arch is considerably flatter.  One of my most exciting moments after the first op was putting on a sock and looking at my foot thinking 'wow...I look like I have normal feet'.  After acquiring more flexibility in my toes my second most exciting moment was when I realized I could wave my big toe...very cool, couldn't really do that with the crunchy 'before' toes!

After...............................Before

6 Weeks P.O. - Officially Nothing to Report

Toes still a pain in the proverbial but basically nothing I can do on that front.  On the other hand I am now in shoes and walking unaided, admittedly at the speed of a rather elderly relative but people tend to be understanding about these things.  I have also managed a number of other milestones, showering standing up, walking up the stairs, etc.Oddly the up stairs is much easier than the down stairs, possibly again to do with ankle flexibility.

So from here on in its just a case of speeding up the walking and reducing the ever-present puffiness. My marker for reduced foot swelling is when I can see my veins and when I can see my tendons when I wiggle my toes...I will of course update you when that happens but as far as I can tell, 6 weeks P.O. everything is almost back to normal!

40 Days P.O. - Shoe Time!

So I just thought I'd let you know I managed a one crutch trip to our corner shop at the weekend - twice!  Our corner shop is only a 5 minute walk away but you can imagine how long that took but it wasn't like I had anything else to do, and besides, there was NOTHING in my fridge!  I am also sporting the shoe look this week, thus far this has taken the form of either sloppy boots (probably very bad for my rehab but very comfy) or birkenstocks plus bandage.  The latter does look a little like I'm going for the socks and sandals combo but I think the crutch helps confirm that I'm not.

My one memory that is bought back that I will try and pass on is that right now walking is a little like exercise.  Basically you haven't done it for a while so muscles that you normally use, like your hip flexors, will suddenly start to hurt.  It's also a lot easier if you don't sit down for extended periods after walking because things tend to hurt more when you get up again.  The main example of this is the heel part of the op, I find that a good long (10-15 mins is long for me right now) walk, if it's followed by a half an hour sit down, will kill my heel if I try to stand up again.  It just feels super bruised.  The trick is to largely ignore it and gradually increase the amount you walk around on it.

Grim toes looking a little better although still oozing, will update pics later in the week!

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!