On October 10th I had foot surgery...bunion surgery to be more precise. I don't like that they call it bunion because that sounds like something that grows on the foot and is easily removed. Just lop it off and all is well. Bunion surgery is not really that simple and it's a hell of a lot more painful than I expected too. Bunion surgery usually involves cutting or shaving off whatever bone is sticking out from base of the big toe for starters. I was hoping the bones would just be kind of shoved back where they belong and pegs inserted in strategic areas would hold it in place. I was way off, although I still prefer my surgical ideas over the actual surgery. With the actual surgery as I said, they cut off the offending protruding bone on the side and then make v-shaped cuts into the bone of the big toe area to insert pegs (2 in my case) into the bone to help keep it in place while it heals. The pegs are made of a very thick cat gut so it dissolves over time.
That's a very nice incision picture right there by the way....doc said so. The funny little white lines are bits of string that got caught on the tape when the dressing was removed.
This is the best picture I could get of the colors that showed up all over my ankle and foot although it doesn't show much. I didn't think to take the picture until a lot of the bruising had gone away. I don't know how they held my foot still during surgery but when I started to see the amount of bruising and swelling I was getting I started thinking they must have put the foot in some kind of a vice.
This is another picture that was taken late. It's part of the old bruising I got when I ran over Bell on my scooter. My dogs do NOT get out of the way! I cut right; she cut left; I clipped her and she yelped...while the scooter fell over with me on it and it all was captured in slow motion in my mind. This was my 'good' leg until that day. The other spots that were bruised could not be photographed.
This is the nifty surgical boot I got right after surgery. Unfortunately I am STILL wearing it. The swelling is way down from what it was and mostly all the bruising is gone now too. However, putting a normal shoe on is still difficult and something I can only do for a little while each day. If I do a lot of walking in a shoe the pain just intensifies to the point of no return so I wear a normal shoe every day for a little while and then after massage and ice I put the surgical boot back on. I also do range of motion exercises every day. That's a ton of fun too and causes the foot to swell more but it's got to be done.
This is how my foot looks when it's happy. Covered up to stay warm and not being walked on.....aaaaaahhhhhhh, that's much better!!
