Foot surgery week 4.

The latest update is that the pains ARE getting less especially during the day and when resting.
Preferably I now have the foot on a second chair in the kitchen while I work on the lap-top.

Those sudden stabbing very painful jabs are much rarer now but especially in the evenings after 9pm there are still ''twinges'' and some are in the heel as well as the toes and sometimes my toes go very very hot for no reason. They do prefer to be back in the sandal with the hood on rather than with a sock inside the sandal.

I find cycling every other day works a treat and cycling by using the heel more than the toe end on the right foot anyway.

I do find my fitbit thinks I do well over 10,000 steps a day but that cannot be right, must be some of the crochet I;m doing a bit of.
By 11 pm today 28 Sept I have had no painkillers at all as yet. There was a lot of sitting today to watch the HV conference online. I'd only done 5000 steps by 4 pm?

I'm at 8686 now but the good news is I have had my second shower! And can stand full weight bearing on both feet... I also realise I should have been strapping the third toe DAILY - oops.

 So this was just before the shower,

 Still before and looking a bit odd.... Probably the angle of the foot and camera , I a probably heel weight bearing which is why the toes stick up? It's got to be a bit of a habit.

 After the shower just trying to stand normally. Is the right foot smaller than the left now?

Mmmm? Maybe its because the ankle bones are not lined up.

Will not worry about it, it will be my weird camera angle.

So this is the foot status 26 days after surgery. In 2 days it will have been 4 weeks out of the 8 week minimum rest period....

I cycled after 5 pm today, just into town and back, it felt great! 

Getting out and a bit of freedom and social interaction.

I was getting a bit down and very isolated!

Only 2 dogs for company for days on end between 7 am and 6 pm!

Foot surgery week 2 and 3.

 In week two also I made a waterproof cover for the sandal so I could visit Lucy Clark and Towersey dancers and not worry about the rain getting my stitches or surgical wounds wet.
Here I am drawing round my foot on tablecloth plasticised cotton fabric to make a shoe.

I also started wearing a sock over the bandage because after the stitches were removed on 14 September my foot shrunk and was slim enough to fit into a sock even when bandaged.

Another step on the recovery journey. 

Though I was lucky and never had any bleeding or significant bruising or swelling of the foot or the ankle at all.

I think this is the new new bandage the GP practice nurse put on after removing the stitches.
Their removal was very painful indeed despite dosing up beforehand and I just about fainted when all the blood rushed to my feet and my head grew dizzy and light headed on the couch.
So I stayed on the couch for a wee while, recovering.

A shoe , quickly sewn and stuck together in 3 parts so that it can easily be removed or fitted gently over the top of the surgical sandal.

First a sole was cut, from a tracing with a seam allowance added.

Then a front was modelled from a curved semi-oval with extra fabric in the curve so it could be pleated into a dome shape. This was  sewn onto the toe end of the sole plate.

Then the heel cover is a rectangle which flows from under the front cover flap round the back of the heel and into the cover at the other side.

This too was sewn onto the sole plate. 

Gaffer tape is used to reinforce the sole a bit and to join the heel cover to the toe cover at each of the sides. VOILA! And it works a treat!

I have worn it cycling and to Towersey a few times and to Lucy Clark and to Bath as well as having it in my bag in case of rain when out cycling.

Now for a bit more of the foot itself. 

After the nurse warned me NOT to renew the bandages every 2-3 days like the hospital had said, she said there wasn't enough and it would be too tricky?

She said leave it to weekly?

 I was only too happy to go along as I had hated stitches removal day and was dreading doing the bandages all alone.  After about 4-6 days after the stitches were out I was simply DYING for a shower- I had been flannel over a basin washing and washing my hair over the bath standing ''upside down like''  and it was all getting too much.  I had a shower with my bandaged foot encased in plastic and gaffer taped down but it STILL got al wet inside there and I had to re do the bandage myself.

BEWARE yukky pictures coming up DO NOT LOOK if QUEASY!

 
 UNDER THE BANDAGE IS THE SURGICAL DRESSING...

The skin looks so awful as the GP nurse doused my foot in Iodine after she removed the stitches, to disinfect but that's a very brown and staining liquid, and it stings like hell.

 My poor skin all crinkly from the elasticated crepe bandaging.

This is the right foot and I'm a bot concerned I cannot straighten it properly as needed for dancing, but I DARE NOT TRY TOO HARD as the boned may not be all mended and joined up yet.

This is the left foot with a nice straight line across the ankle at least.

 So Funny! This was my attempt at keeping the foot dry even AFTER the stitches were removed

It so DID NOT work! My foot ended up swimming in a pool of water inside the plastic . yuk.

 

A plastic bag boot with a sealed end ....

This is the foot on Thursday 22 September....

And then I neatly bandaged it and strapped the 3rd toe as I was told to do and took a lot of painkillers and slept a lot as it was all hurting quite a bit still.

The Foot Surgery Journey week 1

My mother had badly shaped feet once she was in her 50's and she had always blamed it on wearing ''WINKLE PICKERS'' which are high heeled and pointy toed shoes in the 1950's.
It is however also a genetic predisposition as all my cousins on my mother's side have had problem feet with bunions and crossing over toes. As they are mostly in Australia they had a wedge resection of their bunions done quite early on and recommended I do the same...

The NHS does not work in that way, I went for a consultation some years ago when I only had a painful bunion and no crossing toes and was told it was not severe enough for surgery and that the pain was due to mild arthritis in the big toe joint.

Even when I argued prevention being better than a cure and showed the photos taken of my mother's feet and what could be the future state of my feet , they were not interested.  I was discharged.

Now some years later I have a red inflamed and much bigger bunion- or had as I have had it treated now- and 2 small toes crossing over the bigger one , all on my right foot. My left is almost unaffected, thank goodness, it seems a gift from my dad who had good feet.

Alas the problem got worse and I have gotten to the stage where I can wear no ''normal'' shoes or boots, I lived in open fitflops- a posh version of sandalised flip flop- or chunky mules.

I could no longer go for 10-12 mile hikes or long walks, I did not fit into my ski-boots, my ice skates or my roller-blade boots and it was beginning to be more and more painful.
I could bear it though, I did not take medication for this.

Except when Scottish Country Dancing when I used Voltarol gel on both feet , after a mad evening in Pont street I would have danced the skin off my two crossing over toes as the pumps would rub so.
I tried plasters and bandages to no avail.

 This is the BEFORE picture in hospital on 2nd September 2016.

 The dots on the nails are made by the surgeon and the skin rubbed off circle was due to dancing at Pont Street the Tuesday prior to the Friday in hospital.

The procedure was a SCARF OSTEOTOMY with some reconstruction due to the crossing toes.

( or metatarsals to give them their names)

I was aware of being ''out'' for about 100 minutes and when I did come to after that I slept a lot.

But it was a daycase, I was in theatre by 10:30 am - having arrived on the ward at 7 am- and I went home by 5 pm!

Here's Lucy the dog looking bemused at me wearing a shoe in bed....

She's been a faithful loving companion all these first - almost-4 weeks or 26 days...

 
 As the hospital bandaged it and put a protective sandal on but told me to keep it CLEAN AND DRY
for at least 2 weeks until the stitches come out I put a sock on it to stop the temptation for Lucy to LICK IT. She's a very keen licker and any exposed skin gets a loving lick.

And the other leg has to have a DVT prevention stretchy stocking on it for 2 weeks...

Then slowly I progressed, resting like I should for the forst week in bed with leg raised on 2 pillow- that kept slipping and falling off the bed! 

After a few days I made a quick crochet hat for those toes of mine: in a yarn that lay to hand, variegated pink aran cotton...

 Not a good look is it? But more practical than a flopping about hiking sock... And it ties on which made it easy to remove and put on and it stayed put.

 Lots of days sitting in the kitchen on a hard wooden chair with my right led resting on the table so it's oce and high as the instructions from the hospital stated...

 I was surprised at the amount of daily pain though, was not expecting that.
I was on codeine from the hospital and also paracetamol and nurofen and al of that almost 4 hourly.

 I did try to extend the time between doses to 6 or 8 hors or miss out either the paracetamol or the codeine . Or codeine only at night as it makes me sleepy and the pain is worse at night.

So after about 7 days I made an improved version ...

 It certainly made ME smile a lot and I was quite pleased with it but the daughters thought it was weird. In week 2 I started cycling a bit and I got compliments on it from girls in Martin's and Sainsbury's.

It got quite dirty and washed really well inn the machine, no problem.