A Leg Up

In November 2013, I twisted my ankle…you know how you do, step wrong and your ankle buckles. No big deal. By January 2014, my right ankle was still not happy with me. I decided to get it checked out and I was sent to physical therapy for 6 weeks.  I felt like I had improved significantly and so ended PT. Enter Snommagedden.  This was the huge freak snow storm that crippled the entire city of Birmingham.  While walking in 9 degree weather with my children a half mile to safety, I turned my ankle again. Working my PT program I thought would get me right back into shape…and it would have, had I not twisted it again on a sinister small wooden block. Dadgum those wooden blocks! On this particular “twisting” I actually fell to the floor crying. It was a true, “MAN DOWN,” moment. Crawling downstairs I flopped onto my bed crying. This would require another trip to the orthopedic. Changing doctors was a must, my first ortho did not have a a very good bedside manner. After getting the switch and seeing the new guy I started a second round of PT. Sadly, it was no dice. Another trip back to the new guy and his prescription was to try to live life for the next 4-6 weeks and see how bad it gets. Clearly, PT was not working, if after 6 weeks it wasn’t bearable then surgery was in my future.  I knew after two weeks that surgery would be in my future.

Here’s where things get cool.  I have a friend who has had ankle surgery so I called her and we chatted. She gave me the name of the ankle specialist in the same othro group I was already involved with. While I felt a little foolish asking for my 3rd doctor in this group, I did it anyway and I’m glad I did.  On June 16th, I saw Dr. William D. Krauss with Southlake Orthopaedics  and 48 hours later he was preforming my surgery! Brostrom-Gould Lateral Ankle Ligament Reconstruction was the name of the game, that plus another more recent procedure that I didn’t catch. I’ll spare you all the medical garbage of what happened but essentially, the first procedure would stabilize my ankle and I’d be in a cast, non-weight bearing for 6 weeks! However, I was a good candidate for the second procedure that was basically like wrapping duct tape around the interior of my ankle. Because of the second procedure I would be only 2-3 weeks in a non-weight bearing cast, then in a walking boot for 4 weeks. Yes! Much better! So in a whirlwind I was admitted for outpatient surgery with 48 hours notice to get my post-op care lined up.

As always, my parents came to the rescue! Wouldn’t you know that Noah would have nighttime scout camp the same week I had surgery and Eric was the trained leader for his group. Praise the Lord for my parents. Noah didn’t have to miss a single night! This all happened so fast that I found myself at home with my leg propped up in a cast wondering…”What just happened?!” On my first day I found that my real pain was in my pinky toe and on the side of my foot right below my pinky toe. Weird. However, if you took a look at my cast you could see a thumb print where someone was holding my foot up as they were casting it. It was impinging on my foot. So the next day I went back to the hospital to get a new cast. When they removed my cast my foot was actually indented where the cast was pressing down on my foot. My little pinky toe was bright red. Poor pinky. Cast number 2. Hot Pink. Bring it. I wish I could say that this was the last cast but on day two my achilles was killing me and sure enough there was a weird indent back there. Apparently my second cast was put on with my foot pointed instead of  in a more right angle sort of way. This trip was just to the ortho office thank goodness. This time she took all of my bandaging off and I could see my foot. Shockingly there was no swelling. I had been a very good girl. I could see the incisions a little and it didn’t look all that bad. Third time is a charm cuz it is now 5 days later and I’m in the same cast. Yay! I never thought I’d be glad to have a cast on, but I sure am. When she took off all the bandaging I could tell how fragile my ankle really was, I was glad to have the cast put back on. Now, eight days out…I’m not so thrilled with non-weight bearing casts.  I never really appreciated how much you need to be able to stand on two feet to do things. Praise be to God, my friend who referred me to Dr. Krauss also lent me her knee scooter, crutches, cane, shower seat and walking boot!!!!  How awesome is that?!  So now I’m scootin’ around the house pretty good. I have a follow up on June 30. They will take off this cast and probably put a new one back on. I would love to be in the boot on the 30th but I doubt that will happen. My parents went home for a rest on day 7 and will be back up for Yaya’s birthday and then stay a bit more. They are such a gift and blessing to us. God also orchestrated it so that the girls would be in summer school  during the 6 weeks I am down. So three days a week they go to school from 9-1 and it is a much needed break for everyone. So that’s about all the boring news I have regarding my foot. I leave you with pictures of my cast and the girls painting my toe nails for me.

First Cast

Second  cast

Third Cast ready for a shower (only my family would take a picture of this, while laughing at me…nice.)

Pedi from my girls