3-Day Post-Op Visit After Hardware Removal

October 2018

Blood seepage and doc visit

I am posting a brief update for those of you that have questions about blood seepage after surgery. I wrote in my last post about how I was concerned with all of the blood on my bandage, since I had not experienced this after my first two surgeries. There are photos showing the amount of blood lost in my previous post. According to my doctor, this sometimes happens, and he did not seem concerned. There were two spots on my incisions that had fresh blood spots, which he dabbed, and then wrapped my foot back up. 

I thought my foot looked pretty gruesome when the bandage was removed. My stitches look more like frankenstein than they had before! I am afraid I am going to have some nasty scarring after this heals. My doctor had said I was going to have two small incisions, and I have two large nasty-looking ones.

I removed the photo of my foot showing the stitches that I originally shared because I had a complaint--even though this blog is meant to provide information and not to provoke disgust. Feel free to contact me, if you are interested is seeing a view of the differences between dissolvable inside stitches and exterior stitches. The scarring that I have from these two incisions with exterior stitches is worse than what I have from the dissolvable stitches on my other foot. 

#2 ~ Preparing for Surgery

February 2017

Pre-op exams

I had an office visit with both my foot doctor and regular physician a few weeks before the scheduled surgery date to make sure I was healthy enough for surgery. I have always been a healthy person with nothing out of the ordinary, and the only experience that was new for me during my pre-op exams was that I had an EKG at my doctor's office.

My foot doctor gave me three prescriptions to fill: Norco (pain killer for after the surgery), crutches, and a knee roller. I asked him if there were any exercises I could do beforehand that would assist with the healing process, and he said no. He said that since I am quite active (yoga, walking/hiking, biking, etc.), I would already be ahead of many patients. Even so, my projected recovery time was 6 to 8 weeks non-weight bearing with 3 to 4 months total recovery time. Yikes! I guess there are two types of bunion surgery, and mine was the more severe kind, needing two physicians to perform the operation.