First Post-Op Appointment

My first post-op appointment after my sesamoidectomy went well. 

Me and all of my scooter buddies in the waiting room. 

I was so excited to go in to see how my foot was doing, but I was especially excited to take off all of the bandages and let my foot breathe for a little while!

This is my foot after it was first unwrapped ~ 2 weeks after surgery.

You can still see the faint purple marker lines from where I wrote "yes" before the surgery - as in, "yes, this is the right foot to slice open." Also, as you have probably noticed, the nurse said "It looks like you have skittles on your toes!" It was my attempt to get my notoriously dry doctor to chuckle before surgery, but instead he said - "What happened?"

My foot still looked pretty swollen - especially my toes and ankle, but it felt really small to me. I can't explain it. I guess since it had been smashed under all of those bandages my foot looked a little slimmer than usual. 

WARNING. Gross pictures ahead.

Here is the incision site:

Yuck! That's a lot of stitches!

After the nurse unwrapped my foot, they took me back for x-rays. I was definitely nervous about this part because I was afraid they would ask me to put weight on my foot. They didn't, which I was so grateful for, but they did ask me to point my foot up towards the sky, and that hurt a lot. It was like an electric shock.

Here are my x-rays. Compare them to the diagram beneath it to see if you can tell that my lateral sesamoid is gone. Can you see the bright white spot in the red circle? That is my medial sesamoid. If you look close enough, you can see a dark spot to the left of it where the lateral sesamoid used to be. 

When the P.A. walked in, she looked at my x-rays and said "YOUR SESAMOID IS MISSING!" Then we both freaked out about where it could have gone. That was fun.

She walked over to my foot and started touching it. This made me very nervous, but I didn't really feel any pain. Then she started gently rubbing my toes, and this felt like HEAVEN. I was still a nervous wreck, but for the most part nothing hurt. I can't tell you how wonderful and weird this felt. On one hand, the pressure felt amazing, but on the other, there was still numbness on several parts of my foot. The combination of these two sensations was crazy and very hard to explain. 

She grazed the incision site once, and there was a shock of pain, but then it went away.

She said the numbness and tingling was normal, but that I should start touching my toes and wiggling them to remind my body that they were there. 

And then, like music to my ears, she said, "let's see you back in 10 days and hopefully get you off of that scooter and into a boot!" Woo hoo!!! I can't wait. That's also when they will take the stitches out. If it goes as planned, this means that the time on my scooter will only be a total of 3 1/2 weeks instead of 4, which doesn't sound like much until you're actually in my situation! It's as sweet as an early Christmas present. 

This is my new setup. The bandages are gone with the exception of one layer over the incision site. Then they put this silky sock over my foot to keep any debris from getting close to the stitches. I can finally move my ankle! 

My foot gains a little more feeling every day. I am continually challenging myself to find positive things to focus on rather than the "what ifs" and the frustrations that come with getting around on a clunky scooter in a small apartment. Here are some of my positives: I am on my way to healing! I have great doctors taking care of me who know what they are doing! And I am gaining an appreciation for the smaller things in life like taking a shower whenever you want and being able to clean a sink full of dishes (thank you hubby for doing so many of these small things for me!). 

More to come after post-op appointment #2. 

Thanks for reading!