Five to Seven Weeks Post-Op [second foot] and 4th Checkup

March and April 2018

It has been almost a week already since my 6-week post-op checkup. I have not been enthusiastic about finishing this post since I started walking, because I had been feeling discouraged, and a bit depressed, which is not normal for me! After some in-depth praying and placing more trust in God, I feel like things are getting back to normal for me.

5 weeks post-op

Pain and swelling

The top of my right foot was quite painful during week five. I was exercising my foot more, and I was moving around on the crutches more, which probably aggravated things. The swelling remained minimal until after my 6-week checkup when my doctor said I could start to put weight on my foot. After I started walking, my foot swelled quite a bit on top and around the ankle. There is more information about the pain and swelling after I started walking under that heading near the end of this post.

X-ray at 6 week post-op checkup

Six week post-op checkup

I had more x-rays taken of my right foot, and the doctor said everything looked good. I asked if I could have a copy of my x-rays, and they gave me a disc with all of them. The red area on top of that foot in the photo below is where the two screws are located. When I asked about the incision bump on my left foot (inside circle), he said that is a suture that had not dissolved yet. He told me it would eventually go away.

6 weeks post-op

The doctor said I could start putting weight on my foot using the crutches, and walking as pain allowed. Last year when he had told me I could start walking, he did not say anything about using crutches. After I left the office, I wondered if he had said that because my foot was not as well healed as it had been last year, or if it was because he knew I would need the crutches because of the pain. If you read my posts from last year, you may recall that the assistant at that time had told me most people are immediately able to walk when given the go ahead (post #9). Not true! Since I had all of my x-rays, I decided to compare the ones from six weeks post-op last year to this years to see if they looked the same. I could not tell any differences between the two (I am no x-ray expert), so I contacted my doctor. I sent an email via their website asking if anything was different in the healing progress this time since he had not told me to use the crutches last time. An assistant called me four days later (2 business days), and said pretty much the same thing he had said in the office: Walk on it as pain allowed. In the email and on the telephone, I expressed that I wanted to make sure there was not any cause for concern, or anything I needed to be careful of. She basically just told me not to push myself too hard.

Walking the first week

Again, I could not stand on my foot when I first tried at six weeks post-op because of the severe pain. In my last post, I mentioned that I had been massaging and rubbing the bottom of my foot to prepare it for walking. Doing this did prevent the pins and needles shooting pain through the nerves on the bottom of my foot; however, I still had pain through my foot and ankle.

The pain I experienced was the same as I wrote about in post #10 last year with just a couple of differences:

• I did not have pain around my big toe this time.
• I did not have the tingling/shooting pain on the bottom of my foot.
• The pain that I had in my ankle and through my foot was worse this time than it had been last year.

Walking made my ankle swell considerably. It was extremely sore and tender, and I started icing my ankle every hour. I was surprised by this because I had been doing ankle exercises and rotations since I had not worn a cast this time. I thought this would better prepare me for walking.

I was still using the crutches to walk a week later, and I had been using a cane with less support after four days last time. In the mornings, I started out with the crutches when I first got up, then I used the cane for as long as I could tolerate, and then I was back on the crutches. When I had my other foot done, I had been able to walk without the cane within two weeks. I feel like I am farther behind on that this time.

I have just reached seven weeks post-op. I will post an update about my condition next week after walking in the surgical shoe for two weeks.