Giving my boot the BOOT

I went back to the foot doctor today. I got “weight bearing” x-rays, so I was standing with weight on my foot while they took the x-ray. The doctor said everything looked like it was all healed up and I could start weening myself off of the boot! I can start wearing two normal, “supportive” shoes (darnit, no flats or cute sandles yet) for a few hours a day. He said to expect my muscles to hurt from not being used heavily in so long, but I can go SWIMMING and do other activities as my foot gets stronger. Woohoo!

Look mom, no crutches!

I’ve been crutch free for a whole week now, and boy does it feel great! There’s no better feeling than to roam around on your own without everyone knowing you’re coming from a mile away (crutches are LOUD!). It’s great to not have to eat in the kitchen because you can’t take your food to the table. Jasmine will be glad I don’t smack her in the face when I get them out of the back seat. Being on crutches is probably one of the most annoying experiences I’ll ever have, but it certainly makes you appreciate walking.

However, I did realize that crutches have some very good uses:

- You can clean up your dirty clothes from bed. I picked up all my laundry and put it in my hamper with the crutches.
- Turn lights on/off without getting up.
- Keep the bathroom door that doesn’t lock shut at Sammy’s
- Blocking hungry cats from eating/attacking Jasmine
- Dumping water collected on top of the bonnaroo tent
- Killing roaches
- Oh yea, WALKING with a bum foot

I’m screwed!

Well, screwed back together! Wow! I completely neglected blogging these past couple of weeks. It’s laziness really because I’ve been sitting around letting my foot heal.

So, I went to the foot doctor on June 2. He’d already seen my x-rays, but upon looking at my foot he immediately said I would need surgery. When I twisted my foot, the tendons pulled two pieces of bone off of my fifth metatarsal. This is a “normal” injury and typically heals on its own if you stay off of it. However, my lovely tendons somehow twisted around so that the bones were sort of sticking out really weird (hence the gross little bump on my foot, for those of you who saw it). It felt like when you get a rock stuck in your shoe, only the rock is inside your foot. Fun! I told my great doctor about my plans to go to Bonnaroo. He knew all about it, and arranged for me to have surgery the very next day so that I would be well enough to leave for Bonnaroo the next week. This was also great because I didn’t have much time to stress myself out about the surgery.

So the next day (June 3) I had surgery on my left foot. I had GREAT nurses. I told them I get really queasy with needles, so they made the whole IV process very easy. They even numbed my hand so that I didn’t feel it going in, and talked to me throughout about Australia and the crazy animals I’d seen. I was under general anesthesia, so I remember rolling into the surgery room and then the nurse putting a mask on me. I didn’t even get to do typical count down from 10…I was out!

The next thing I remember is waking up and seeing the nurse and saying, “Oh…I was dreaming I was in Grey’s Anatomy!” Apparently I said this two or three times. Haa. Then, when I got to the recovery room I noticed something blue on my foot. Quite distraught, I asked the nurse, “DID HE PUT A DUKE BLUE CAST ON ME?!” She laughed and said, “No dear, it’s just your ice pack. He’s a Carolina fan anyway. He wouldn’t dare put a Duke blue cast on you!”

In surgery the doctor saw that two pieces of bone had broken off. So he put them back where they belonged, and secured it with a nice little screw, which I will have forever:

I stayed in recovery with my mom for umm what I thought was 15 minutes but apparently it was an hour or so. I left with a splint on my foot and a prescription for some good pain killers. I was in the splint for 7 days. I’m not going to lie, the splint was not very fun. It makes me appreciate even more that I don’t have to have a cast. The pain wasn’t too bad, but I think that’s because I had good painkillers. The worst part was getting muscle twitches and spasms in my foot from not moving my foot at all for so long. Not only did it hurt, but one time I got a really bad one and it made my foot move about a half an inch forward in the splint, so it wasn’t snuggled perfectly in the splint. It was extremely uncomfortable and made my heel hurt really bad. Luckily, the doctor gave us the go ahead to take the splint off a day early. My wonderful Dr. Mom took the splint off and checked out my incision, which looked fine. Then I just had to keep bandaids over the incision and check to make sure it didn’t get infected. After the splint was off, I started using this sweet thing called an aircast. It’s a boot, but has these air bladders on the sides that you pump up to keep your foot nice a comfy and snug in the boot.

Theeeennn, I went to Bonnaroo! It was great! I will do a whole Bonnaroo post soon, I promise!

So this past week I went back to the doctor. He said everything looked like it was healing fine. I’m on the crutches for two more weeks, but I can start putting weight on my foot as I’m walking in the crutches. After two weeks, I can walk around without the crutches (WOOHOO!) but still in the boot. After those four weeks I have another appointment, at which point I assume he’ll tell me whether it looks like I’ll need physical therapy. I’m thinking I will, but I’m no doctor.

All in all, I think I’ve had the best experience you can have breaking your foot! I’ve learned to watch out for storm drains, laugh at myself when things get frustrating, accept help from other’s freely, and enjoy wheelchair rides!