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.