June 11, 2012

Day 2!!!

I'm back and consciuos! And now I am going to give a little more background and details into my surgery.

Here's how my foot looked before... And BEWARE, it's not a pretty sight (you may want to take small children and animals out of the room)




RAAWWRRR!!

As you can see, I have a medly of funions, bunions, corns and other various vegetables on my feet. I've been ashamed of how my feet look, so for the longest time, I would wear closed toe shoes in the summer and socks when company came around. I even wore socks around my boyfriend for the first year and a half of our dating. Luckily he's seen my digits and doesn't seem to care too much, especially since his feet look worse than mine :).










Not only is it painful to look at, but my feet have also become painful to walk on as well. And since I couldn't go another day looking and having to deal with these issues, I decided it was beyond time to do something about it.





 For the last year or so, I've learned how to put makeup on my feet to camouflage the multiple imperfections so I could at least wear peep toe or somewhat open toe shoes.

Doesn't even look like the same foot, does it???










 But even with the makeup, the pain was becoming too great, so I asked around, did my research, and picked a surgeon specialized in my "ahem" issues. I wanted to get both feet done at the same time (the left is bad, but not as bad as the right foot), but my doctor STRONGLY urged against that because not only would it prolong recovery, but it could cause other issues without one good foot to walk on. So I opted to have the right foot done first.

Now with that being said, with surgery, and 6-8 weeks of recovery ahead of me, that means that I won't be able to get much workouts in. I am a pretty active person, I normally go to the gym 3 times a week, or walk 2-3 times a week. I don't consider myself big, but I've already been trying to shed a few extra pounds and I knew the surgery would potentially throw a monkey wrench in my plans. I explained my dilema to my brother, who is a personal trainer out of state, and first thing he said was "Sis, you gonna get FAAAAT!". Needless to say, I explained that is the opposite of what I'm trying to do, so he suggested a high protein, high fiber, low carb diet. He suggested if  I do eat carbs, to eat them early in the morning, so the day before my surgery, I stocked up on lots of frozen veggies, meats, fish, etc. Also, my boyfriend is not much of a cook, so I had to make sure I got food easy enoughfor him to cook without killing me....

 Surgery Time!!!

I had my surgery pretty early in the morning. As I said before, I've done lots of research into what I'm getting myself into, so I was prepared for what was coming, except for the fact that I would be put under, which I've never gone through before. So yeah, I was a bit nervous. I thought I had the cool face until a nurse asked why I looked so stressed, and my boyfriend took a picture of me in my medical gear with this horrified look on my face. But once they administered the medicine to me I was OUT!!! The surgery lasted about an hour and half, but I was out over 2 hours.

Basically, my doctor fixed the hammertoes and released tendons in 4 toes, the second and third toes were shortened, and instead of pins, my doctor used implants so I wouldnt have to have that terrible pin sticking out of my toes. Also, my tailor's bunion was removed. Here's the pic after surgery. There's a tiny bit of blood, so if you're squemish, turn away...

As for the pain....

For the first few hours after I got home, I had no pain, no feeling at all. I went ahead and took a dose of pain killers like the nurse advised so I wouldn't feel much when the anestesia wore off. Around 8 last night, the numbness started to wear off. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the pain varying between a 3 and a 5, even with the painkillers. Luckily the pain wasnt ongoing, it was more like waves of pain, so it was annoying than anything. It's all good though!

This morning, the pain has lessened a bit, as I have started a schedule of taking the pain killers, starting at 5:30 this morning. Also listen when they say to ice and elevate your foot, because it helps IMMENSELY!!

I'll check backlater this evening to speak a little more about what I've been eating so far.