Foot/Ankle Surgery – Recovery, The 47th Day after

Posted by DetectiveEstes in Uncategorized      No comments

Mar
7

I’m going to begin this post with this: On the 47th Day after this surgery I have two things to report: First, I am itching all over. I’ve been taking allergy meds and have stopped my blood thinner a couple days ago. This was the medication for my blood clot. I was supposed to take this till it was gone. I had another ultrasound last week and no clot was found. So the Doctor advised me to just stop taking that med when it ran out. Except, day before yesterday, in the evening, I noticed that I was itching and there seemed to be no noticeable rash. So I would scratch, and nothing would appear even while scratching. Now, Dr. Sproules prescribed the meds and advised me that if I had an itching reaction to just stop taking it. So the itching took two weeks of taking the meds. As advised, I stopped taking the medication the morning after the night of intense itching all night. I’ve been taking the allergy medication about every 6 hours or so. When the allergy med wears off, I start to itch. Hopefully this aggravation will be gone soon!

The next thing to report is I am up to 90 pounds!! That is I am placing approximately 90 pounds of weight on my left foot while walking. Still using crutches, but more and more weight is being placed on my foot as I walk. This morning was a great first as well. I went into our kitchen, got a cup of coffee and, holding the coffee in my right hand, I used the crutches on my left side and walked back with the coffee and sat down in another room. Before this, I had to have my wife bring me the coffee. I AM healing up every day!

February 27 I had another appointment with Doctor Cuttica to look at my surgery recovery and also made appointments for physical therapy. Doctor Cuttica thought my foot was healing nicely. As a layman, I thought it looked pretty bad. Had scabs over most of the foot, and the dead skin all over, still with some bandages on parts of the foot. The doctor was quite happy, however. From the doctor, I went for a physical therapy appointment. My first appointment was March 4th

Now, March 4th, was my first physical therapy, beginning with an evaluation. My therapist is Matt, head of the therapy department. Matt had me walk with one crutch, not two and pronounced that I was to go that way from that day. He then had me walk with no crutch and pronounced that an essential failure, which was evident to me! Matt assigned another therapist to me, Julie and we did some exercises. Following that, Julie printed out some exercises and that was my first therapy. These are the exercises:

Next, on March 6, I had my second therapy. Unlike the first session, which was pretty lightweight, this one was 1 1/2 hours long! Felt like I was run over by a truck when I was done! First Matt stretched my ankle back and forth, then side to side for about 15 minutes. At first, the extreme movement hurt like crazy, but after about 5 minutes or so, the ankle was a bit looser and turned and stretched easier with no pain. Following the stretching, Julie came to me with a stretchy band and placed a 3 pound wrap around weight on my ankle. My exercises were to do the same thing as Matt had just done manually. Front to back, then up and down sideways with me lying on both my right side, then my left side. Following that, Julie put the stretch band around the ball of my foot. First I pulled the foot back to me, then pushed away while holding the band reasonable tight so I had to stretch the band to do this exercise. Following this, Julie pulled the foot down while I pulled back against the stretch band. Following this, Julie taught me how to turn on one side, and place my right foot in such a way as to stretch the band while moving the foot to one side, then the other. After this, Julie had me on a stationary bicycle for 5 minutes. Next, I was placed on a leg press which was one which the weight was the weight of the exercises along with extra weight. Julie laid on 20 pounds and I did 35 reps. Next, I was placed in an open space on the floor, and walked heel to toe for about 15 feet, turned, 15 feet back, and repeat. Following that, was on the same floor space, I had to do a slow high step for the same length of floor and do that four times as well. Last exercise was a step up. The step was only about 4 inches high. The exercise was to step up, then step back with the off foot. Repeat 20 reps. The point of all of this was not just to move the ankle, and strengthen it, but also to stretch it so the movement would be easier. After the exercises the ankle was placed in a localized soft cast device and cold water ran around my ankle. Most readers would believe the ankle would be crying in pain. But there was no pain by the time I was done. Overall a good full length therapy.

I am still occasionally itching from the reaction to the medication. Today, I was doing my home surgery exercises. All of a sudden, I had this god-awful itch right on the bottom of my surgered foot!! Had to be scratched or I was going to screech! So I scratched. As soon as that itch was scratched, danged if it didn’t transfer itself to the bottom of my right foot!! I told my wife it reminded me of the Wizard’s Duel in the movie, “The Sword in the Stone”. Don’t know if you remember, Merlin and Madame Mim had a wizard’s duel. Merlin won because he caused a germ to enter Madam Mim and she would have had to destroy herself to destroy the germ. Anyway, the germ went from one part of Madame Mim to another and she couldn’t control that germ! That’s me!! With the itching. Danged itch goes from one part of me to another! Time to take another allergy pill.

Stay tuned, see you next time.