Franken-foot

I had my post-op appointment with Dr. Kluesner at 10 a.m today. I was feeling pretty good about my crutch abilities until I got to the front door of Christie (we parked at a spot next to the handicap spots so it wasn't too far away from the door). Then there was an older gentleman there to greet us and he offered a wheel chair, and to my surprise, I took it. And now I'm glad I did.

We were welcomed to our appointment and I popped out of the wheelchair and into the exam chair. One of the nurses asked me health-related questions like what kind of drugs I was on (see how they repeat that no matter how many times you see them). Except that they left off one of the two drugs that I have a problem with, which is weird because I'd been in that office six time to see him and it's always been on it, although the second time, I had to fix it because they'd written down Iodine instead of Codeine. The nurse (she was new) immediately freaked out that I'd had a drug problem and hadn't told anyone before surgery. When I said that it was on the list for every prior appointment and that it was on the list that I gave both Carle and Kluesner's offices (that they repeated back to me) several times the prior week, she just went silent.

Then another nurse came in and started cutting off my splint. She left the last bit of cloth for the doctor to do, because I guess some people pass out.

I'm not a terribly squeamish person. Blood doesn't bother me. Needles don't bother me. But for some reason, I always thought that when I was getting a shot, I shouldn't watch. So I look away when they take blood or I get a flu shot. But today, I was reclined while they cut the heavy splint off and I didn't look. But I had MacTroll take photos.  you an a see that I did a pretty good job of keeping the swelling down. My little toes look like sausages, but that the incision's pretty long. Still, I don't think I look too crazy.

The close up reveals many, many staples. He had to restructure both my peroneal tendons, remove my extra bone and he ended up finding that I had two ligaments that were totally torn and had to sew them back together. He took (or had someone take) pictures of my surgery. I think when I go back in two weeks, I'll see if he'll share them with me. I'm kind of curious about what it looked like in there versus what I've seen on the Internet.

The doctor pulled out my drain, which was an odd feeling. There's this tube hanging out of your body, and so I breathed in and when I exhaled, he quickly pulled a few inches of tubing out. He put pressure on it to stop any bleeding and then it was done. But there was kind of this "zip" feeling during the pull and a slight burn, as things inside my leg that I'm not used to feeling actually touched a foreign object inside my skin.

The hard part about this appointment was actually the casting. The nurse raised the chair and had me dangle my legs off of it. This was the first time besides going to the bathroom and my two quick shower chair situations, where I had my leg below my heart. She moved my foot back so that my knee and my ankle were both in a 90-degree angle so she could cast. Everything in my leg just got tightened. And it protested. It didn't hurt, it just felt like it couldn't move any further, but then it did. Suddenly, I got really hot and lightheaded. I told the new nurse, and she ran and got me a cool rag to put on my head and a glass of water to drink.

I leaned against the chair back sideways for support while the nurse wrapped my leg as quickly as possible. I chose a blue cast. Then I chilled out in the office until I felt like I wasn't going to pass out. I'm not sure if it was the feeling of getting my foot pushed to its limits, that I hadn't really been upright in a half of a week or being high on the pain meds that did it, but it was a bit disconcerting.

Overall, I've been kind of drugged a lot for the pain. I'm still supposed to remain on bed rest with my foot up to control the swelling for four. It was been nice that my aunt and uncle came over and brought dinner last night. KTDID has been over twice. I feel like a normal person when she's around. She makes me laugh and always has such good stories. A woman on the library board sent me a little get well book to read today, which was also very sweet. But mostly, it's been me watching Mad Men and rotating my leg a bit so it "cooks" evenly. :-)

Hopefully, MacTroll will run out and get a sharpie so any visitors can swing on down to the basement and sign my cast. I've never had one before. This is new to me. Although, I think we'll avoid putting any pressure on the outside of my leg near the incision. The cast is not as cushy as the splint, which is good in that it's not as bulky to haul around on the crutches, but bad in that any misplaced touching near the tender side is uber painful and makes me jump or shout (as MacTroll found out when we got home and I was trying to maneuver it out of the back seat effectively and touched it against a metal bit on the back of the driver's seat.)