I have a new mode of transportation, a knee walker. Here I am using it to roll down the hallway at work.
Almost three weeks ago I had surgery on my foot to repair something that was causing me great amounts of pain. One of the bones in my foot was extra-long and it was causing a hammer toe (crazy ass toe or CAT, for short). The toe itself did hurt, but the majority of my pain was on the bottom of my foot where the extra long bone was pressing and doing damage to the soft tissue there. My option for a permanent solution was surgery. The doc I went to was not optimistic that any other treatments would offer any real relief. And since he's been around, like, forever, I chose to believe him. Since Vegas is looming on the horizon in August (more on that in another post) I thought it best to get it done ASAP. That way I'm healed up enough to walk 'til I drop while I'm there. Anyway, I digress. The doctor opened up the top of my toe/foot and sawed off the offending bone. Really. I could hear the saw during surgery since they did a block at my ankle. They also had to shoot me up with local anesthesia because I could still feel when he started to make the incision. I drifted in and out during the entire 45 minute operation. He reattached the sawed-off bone to the adjacent bone with a screw (that will stay in my foot) then he straightened out the CAT and put a pin in to keep it straight while it heals.
Behold:
I'm going to see the doctor tomorrow for removal of the stitches. I'm hopeful that he'll also remove the pin. People who look at it (and maybe you, too) think it hurts. It really doesn't. The stitches are driving me mad, but other than that, it doesn't hurt. The pin sometimes gets bumped on stuff and moved off of center. Since I'm a little OCD (OK, a lot), I've taken to turning it back until it's straight up again. And it really does not hurt. Nobody believes me. Notice my nice pedicure (courtesy of my best pals, Christina and Heather--it was a birthday gift). You can't really tell, but the toe with the pin is the only one that isn't painted. The nurse who checked me in for surgery asked which toe it was and I pointed to my foot and said, "The unpainted one." They all thought that was pretty funny. I just thought it was practical.I removed all the bandages (mostly) today and was going to take a picture before stitch removal, but that toe looks like a renegade Li'l Smoky that lost a bar fight and had to get stitched up. So I'll wait and take before and after pictures tomorrow at the doctor's office.
I have to admit that zooming from the parking lot to work in the morning is one of my favorite times of the day. I can go faster on the knee walker than I can with my own two feet. But I don't go too fast because I don't want to fall off. It has brakes, but they're more for slowing down than actually stopping quickly.
