You Think You Are Ready

Today is two weeks post surgery. Recovery is moving along, although it's hard to feel like anything is happening when still on 'forced relaxation' with the toes in the air. It feels great while I sit with it up, but as soon as I try to move around it begins to throb. It's a strange sensation, not super painful, but it seems as soon as the blood rushes to my foot it pulsates back to life. It starts with a pins & needles sensation and quickly moves to feeling as if my foot is swelling inside the cast. I can deal with this for a bit, but it quickly sends me back to my chair with the pillows to support my foot.

On Saturday (10 days post surgery) I decided I would try to make it up the stairs so I could shower and maybe sleep in my bed that night. I started out full of hope and determination. It didn't take long for that to be replaced with realism! Now, I don't claim to be in ANY kind of shape. I'm a 56-year-old overweight woman who hasn't seen the inside of a good workout in a few years. I'm sure this is a factor in my success. If you are facing this surgery & need to deal with stairs, I highly recommend building up as much strength as possible beforehand. Practice the stairs on crutches before the surgery to get a feel for total non-weight bearing on the surgical foot. I did practice, but I did not do any strength work.

So off I start, using the handrail and a crutch.  It is really hard to balance on a crutch, not touch the surgical foot at all and move the good foot up a stair.  My trusty hubs was behind me, ready to catch me if I fell. All I could think was "then we'd BOTH be out of commission!" Actually, I was thinking a lot of things, including that I was more nervous about coming back down the stairs. To me, going up is a matter of strength, while going down is more a balance issue. Step two, ok, wow there are a lot of stairs. Steps 3 & 4 had me thinking of where I was going to stop and rest because there was no way I was making it up the whole flight of stairs in one session. At step 5 I decided to turn around and try a step down, just to make sure I would be able to do that when the time came. By now I was sweating pretty good, my foot was throbbing and I was a little shaky (that happens when I push the limits, I'm finding).

One. Step. Down. I gather all my strength & put the crutches down on the 4th stair. One little stair. As I shift my weight from my good foot to the crutches, I lose my balance & slip. Thankfully, I caught myself, but it was enough of a scare to send me back to my chair. Of course, I still had to get down the rest of the steps (better as I did more) but by then I was exhausted! I guess it's easy to forget that the entire body goes through the trauma of surgery.

The same pattern seemed to repeat itself over the next several days. I would think I was ready for a task, only to get partway through it and discover I needed to take a break before finishing. I'm trying to be patient, but it is really difficult to be so out of commission for this amount of time. Thankfully we have had some sun this week, which helps immensely.

As for the foot itself, I can say that it is not really painful as much as uncomfortable. First, it itches! Anyone who has ever had a cast can attest to the maddening sensation of an itch you cannot scratch! I told my love that as soon as someone takes that off I'm pushing them out of the way to do an epic scratch! Next, my foot is wrapped in what seems to be cotton batting inside in the hard splint. Imagine a cheap pillow that has been scrunched and squished for 2 weeks. It feels like it has become bunched up and lumpy under my foot. Can't wait to get that changed. If I happen to tap it on the floor or twist it in a different way, I can still feel a pull on the incision site.

I am thankful for a great husband who has been incredibly patient with taking care of my every need, a good sub who allows me not to worry about school, good insurance so we don't have to worry about paying for this forever, good friends & family who are keeping me up to speed on life outside of my house & a comfortable place to recover. Whatever else is going on, I am blessed.

A lesson learned

My intent was to blog regularly about the surgery and recovery, but I'm finding there really isn't that much to write about!

I finally got a knee scooter a few days ago and that has helped a ton. So much so that I overdid it on Wednesday. Don't get me wrong, I didn't leave the house, but I did move around much more than I had previous days. It was a mistake. I ended up having a rough time sleeping that night, simply because my foot was throbbing along what I envision is the incision site. Now, it wasn't terrible, and I know that dealing with this is much less taxing than what so many may be going through. But for me, that night was tough.

So back to the recliner I went, spending as much time yesterday as I could with the toes up again. It made a huge difference. If you are facing the same type of surgery, learn from my mistake and save yourself a night of discomfort & poor sleep.

One problem I've had every day is that my surgical foot gets super cold! I think it's mostly from the fact that my toes aren't getting a ton of blood rushing to them, but ohh! it's cold! It's hard to get a sock or anything on that foot because it's wrapped in so much cast & bandage. For several days I've been trying to just tuck in the toes with a sock, but that wasn't much help. Finally yesterday I found an old fuzzy sock that I could stretch out enough to actually pull it down so it is snug on my toes.

On another note, yesterday was Valentine's Day. Every elementary teacher you know issued a huge sigh of relief this morning that the last party of the year is done. I was not really sad to miss it - I dislike party days to my core! My sub reported that the kids had fun and she was exhausted last night, which is nothing less than I would expect.

I've actually been quite surprised at how little I am worrying about school.  I can only credit that to my amazing sub and team. Another thing that lets me know I'm doing the right thing at this time.

My post op appointment is a week from today. I expect that the doc will take off my current splint/cast and after some assessment decide what type of fashion accessory I get to have for the next two weeks! Maybe I'll get to pick a color this time! 

It must have been meant to be

So, here's the thing. Ten years ago there is NO way I would have taken the time off to have this surgery done mid-year. I would have limped along until a more "convenient" time, of course putting my self-care far below that of my students. I'm not bragging- actually far from it. If you asked 10 teachers what the hardest part of being gone is I could almost guarantee that at least 9 of them would say "making lesson plans" UGH.

Throw in that I found out on Friday, Feb. 1 that I would be having surgery on Wednesday the 6th and be out for at least 3 weeks. In a way, the quick timing was good, both because I was in a lot of pain and because I didn't have much time to panic about getting it all together. 

Suddenly all the things were racing through my mind. 

We-have-to-get-a-space-for-me-to-be-downstairs-and-how-am-I-going-to-take-care-of-around-here-when-it-hurts-to-walk-and-I-want-to-clean-all-the-things-and.....

Holy-cow-how-do-I-even-begin-to-think-about-getting-my-class-my-kids-my-plans-my-personal-stuff-from-my-room-and-oh-my-word-does-anyone-know-a-sub-who-won't-quit?

And-now-it's-snowing-so-my-appointments-keep-getting-changed-because-it-is-so-bad-out-there-even-the-doctor's-offices-are-closed.

How-am-I-possibly-going-to-explain-all-the-routines-and-procedures-in-my-room-because-the-kids-need-those-and-how-do-I-gently-let-the-sub-know-about-some-of-those-certain-behaviors-without-scaring-the-sub-away?

But it must have been meant to be. First of all, the quickness of it happened because I finally started taking dr appts during the school day. This is unheard of. Teachers know this. We rearrange EVERYTHING in order to not miss school. We don't have subs (in general). We don't disrupt the teaching and learning. But I did and here we are.

Next, we had a week (!) of snow days. While being stuck at home before the surgery was not in my plan, it did give me more time to try to get organized for school. I bought a "long term sub" binder of TpT and began filling in ALL the things. I could have done it without this, but the outline of it gave me lots of comfort and it was cute :) I feel like I left as much as I could have about procedures, routines, and students in an organized way.

Then, my amazing teammate (Go MICKIE!) found a sub! Honestly, this is the ONLY reason I can sit here day after day and not obsess over what is going on at school. She was able to spend one day with me at school before I left, which really helped in a smooth transition. She is awesome & I can't thank her enough. 

I find that the days pass slowly, too distracted to really focus on any one thing for long. I'm keeping the toes up and have found that as long as I do that, I can avoid the pain meds. I have been taking tylenol around the clock (per doctor) but have not taken the stronger stuff since 2 days post op. I was using it to sleep, but have now found I don't really need that as long as I spend the days still and "upside down". 

So that's what I do. Recline with my foot high in the sky or lay down (which I like less). My husband is doing a great job feeding and tending to me, although I'm sure he wishes I could just get my own drink or phone or pillow or turn letting out/in the dogs or....... (insert 9 million things that one cannot do while walking on crutches)

Today I'm going to find out some info about getting a knee scooter so I can maybe be a little more independent. But for now, I sit.

The day the nerve block wears off.

First of all, it's "toes above nose", not the other way around as I wrote previously. While it may sound nice to lay around, let me tell you this is more challenging than you might think. As the nerve block wears off it has become easier, simply because whenever I put my foot down it hurts! So far, as long as the foot is elevated the pain is not too bad. I am staying consistent with the pain meds, which has kinda made me sleepy all day. I finally found a position that I can sleep comfortably in our recliner with a bunch of pillows supporting my leg & foot. So that has been my day. In between naps I have been keeping myself entertained with some word search puzzles that a sweet family brought pre-surgery.

At the same time, good ol' Michigan is up to its winter tricks and dumped an ice storm on us. I am so thankful that thus far we have had power. I know many of my colleagues have not had it for 2 days and are not looking at it being restored very soon. To say we are one of the lucky few might be a slight understatement.

Twice today I have inadvertently put weight on my foot. Once on the way back from the bathroom...we have one step I have to conquer each time and this morning I lost my balance & "stepped" on my surgery foot. Now THAT hurt. It has also made me more nervous than I was before about getting around on the crutches and trying to do anything independently. I have started to apply ice to the back of my knee and the surgical site. I'm not sure how much benefit is getting through the cast, but it sure feels good on the back of the knee.

I believe the nerve block has worn completely off now, although I still have some numbness in my smallest toe. My understanding is that may continue as a result of detaching/reattaching and general messing around with nerves. I am pleasantly surprised at the small amount of pain I have when the foot is elevated and equally as surprised at how quickly it starts to hurt when it is not elevated.

Doing my best to follow doc's orders & just relax. Do you ever notice how it doesn't help you relax when people are constantly telling you to do just that? Hmmm.

How did it come to this?

About 5 years ago my 115# lab and I tried to occupy the same step at the same time. She was fine, I broke my left ankle. Likely, that was the beginning of the tear in my peroneus brevis tendon. Fast forward to now, when walking felt like stepping on razor blades all along the side of my foot. From the time I first sought treatment to yesterday's surgery took about 6 weeks. For about 2 of those weeks, I had seen the MRI results and understood that I would probably need surgery. I could not find much about the surgery or recovery time online, so I decided I'd chronicle my experience for anyone else who may be facing the same type of uncertainty.  

By the time they got in there to really look around (more than what they could see on the MRI) it turned out the brevis tendon was pretty much useless and they would need to remove it and transfer the remains to the peroneus longus tendon next door.

I was scheduled for surgery at 8:30 and was back home at noon or so with instructions to keep "nose above toes" 23 hours a day for the first 2 weeks. I have a "splint", which is really an old school cast except my heel is not encompassed in the plaster. 

Getting used to crutches and needing help is hard. I don't like being dependent on someone to help with everything! Luckily my trusty husband is around and keeping me in line. 

At this point, the nerve block is still completely numbing my leg from the knee down, so there is no pain. I fully expect it to be pretty intense since they sent me home with oxycodone and lots of warnings about using it carefully. 

Netflix or book suggestions are welcome!