Since some of you have asked for updates on my ankle situation, I thought I’d let everyone know. My second surgery is tomorrow morning (10/5/99). For this one, I just get Novocaine in the leg rather than general anesthesia, and they’re going to take one of the six screws out and leave the rest of that stuff in there. After that, I just have to rehab the leg.
I took my first steps sans crutches today. I bought a cane about a week ago, but could not get past the “psych out” phase of simply putting my weight on the foot. This morning, I decided enough was enough and I wasn’t going to play mental games with myelf, so I grabbed the cane, planted it and my foot, and took a step.
And my leg rebroke. Ha! Kidding–all the muscles in my foot and lower leg groaned in agony, but I made it. I’ve been using it around the office today, but it’s exhausting. I’ll keep the crutches for long hauls right now, but use the cane around the house and office until I feel strong enough and confident enough to ditch the Tiny Tim act completely.
I’ll update everyone after surgery. Thanks to everyone for their support!
How do you use your cane? By that I mean (assuming it’s your left leg that’s broken), do you hold the cane in your left hand, shifting more weight to it for the part of the stride that would be on your left foot; or do you hold it in your right hand, center your weight primarily on your right leg, and shift your weight more to the right and onto the cane for that portion of a step? I do the latter, but that’s also because my left leg is significantly shorter than my right.
The second one, DIF. It’s my right ankle that’s bad, so I hold the cane in my left hand, and move left hand/right leg, then left leg. It’s hard to get the weight distributed exactly right (and my Achilles tendon certainly lets me know when I didn’t!). Hopefully it won’t be a permanent fixture, but I’ll be getting lots of practice if it turns out to be.
Well, you’ll all be happy (or not-ha!) to know I didn’t die or anything. Surgery went quickly and painlessly.
Even though they just used a topical to numb the skin for the incision, they had me so hopped up on “relaxation” drugs, I think I fell asleep on my own, because I don’t remember anything after they swabbed my leg with the topical. I was in recovery for about an hour.
Right now, the area around the incision hurts like an SOB, but they gave me an Rx for vicodin. I have to stay off it today, then go tomorrow so they can redress it and take a look.
It may be purely mental, but I feel like I have more flexibility now. Once he tells me to get weight on it again, I’ll see how it goes.
Aren’t the pins that they are going to leave in titanium because it doesn’t react and will be ignored by the immunosystem? I was pretty sure they don’t use steel because it will cause an immunosystem reaction, and the body will break it down over time.
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
