Post-OP Days Two through Twelve

Wow, the past ten days have gone by fast! Sorry for not keeping you all up-to-date regularly.

The next three days after surgery seemed to blur together. I couldn’t get a full night of sleep. Monday night (1/14/2013) in the hospital, my sleep pattern cycled from 30 minutes to an hour or two of sleep, waking up, needing to use the bathroom, staying up for a while, then drifting back into nap mode for another short while. I tried so hard to keep up with my post-operation diary each day, but during this period, I would start to drift a sentence or two into my next entry update. My apologies!

My pain remained constant during these few days, some points worse than others. More notably, my foot swelled up more and more each day. It practically became a balloon! I could not see my ankle. By Day 4 (January 17^th), the swelling was painful and prohibited me from doing the few exercises I had been able to do.

Fortunately, the 18th was a different story. The swelling in my foot had gone down enough to move it again. Even better, I was able to take off my dressings, check out my knee, and shower! Boy, did it feel good to freshen up a little bit! My knee did not look nearly as bad as I had expected. There was no drainage, the incision was nice and clean-cut (it is 10 inches long), and there wasn’t nearly as much bruising as I thought there would be.

My ankle, however, is (still) a different story. Presently, the swelling is still prominent in my foot/ankle and the bruising is really busting out down there. I am also struggling with the few exercises I am allowed to do because of this issue. Has anyone else who has undergone an AMZ/TTT/Fulkerson osteotomy had this problem?  

I am hoping the next few days will get better in terms of swelling and mobility. The pain knee pain had a noticeable decrease during the second week following surgery. The first week, though … yikes, did it hurt! There were numerous points where it would be about time to take my next round of pain meds and the pain would be so tremendous, it sounded like I was going through childbirth. I’m not a mother, but holy cow, the pain felt truly awful during week one! I’m just glad that is getting under control now.

Tuesday, January 29^th will be my first post-op follow-up appointment with my OS. At the rate I am going, I doubt I will be able to bend my knee a full 90 degrees by then. As of now, it looks to be at 45 degrees when I bend it.