A Shiny New Ankle – Part II

 

This blog is the second about my new ankle. Observant readers of the earlier “A Shiny New Ankle – Part I may remember that I slept through all the important parts of my recent surgery, hence I know little about what really happened. That, of course, is no obstacle for a two-part blog since talking about myself is one of the few skills that I possess. This blog is an excuse, then, to talk about doctors and surgeries and such things, despite my unconscious state during most of my hospital stay. Further, I was never given a precise understanding about the nature of the surgery beyond the promise from the surgeon that “it shouldn’t hurt any more after the surgery” as he consoled me about my years long discomfort that I had explained in a lengthy monologue in his office.

I should have realized that the surgeon’s earlier remark about no pain wasn’t strictly true when I was pushed out of the hospital in a wheelchair and then rolled into my vehicle with a football sized bandage wrapped around my new ankle. Maybe he meant to say, ‘while you are under anesthesia it won’t hurt,’ as was the case.

Now that I am two plus weeks past the surgery, I have developed some new understanding that I want to share with you.

1.     The surgery was the easy part.

2.     The recovery is much harder.

The truth of the recovery phase became apparent when the Missus and I arrived home and I began use of my newly acquired walker that the doctor was insistent I use every waking hour. The aim, he explained, was to keep my surgical foot suspended in the air, avoiding even the hint of putting any load on it while using the walker. Determined to follow doctor’s orders, I slid my butt to the edge of the car seat with my good foot dangling a foot or so above the ground and my surgical foot even higher. The thought that came to mind was “UMMM. This may be a bit trickier than I thought.” Fortunately, my ever-present Nurse Marjorie recognized the dilemma, and for the first of many times that day saw to it that I gently eased my good foot to the ground while keeping my surgical foot airborne. While I stood on one foot, she unfolded my trusty walker in front of me and I began what has seemed like a life-long journey hopping on one foot.

The first part of that journey began with the maneuver to step away from the truck, and then getting in the appropriate posture and direction for the short trip to the front door. One does all these maneuvers by hopping on one foot. Three hops for a 90-degree turn, six hops for the 180 turn that was required to pass by the front of the truck on the way to my front sidewalk. Fortunately, the sidewalk was relatively clean with only a little mud from my last feeble attempt at maintenance. I successfully passed by the mud in no more than two dozen hops-- enough to make me winded when I reached the steps to our front porch and the front door just beyond. As I arrived, a sudden realization hit me. I had no idea how to climb the steps using my walker. For a brief moment I considered ignoring the doctor’s admonition, but Nurse Marjorie couldn’t abide such a thought when I mentioned it.

The idea struck me that, given my posture of leaning forward over the walker, hopping onto the steps backward might be just the ticket to ease into the climbing mode. Without explaining my notion to the nurse, I did my six-hop pirouette until I could feel the first step pushing into my leg. I leaned forward, then hopped (backward). Almost remarkably, I gained admittance to the first step. It was easy, just as I had expected. Immediately thereafter I tried the second step and gained it almost as easily. The third step was a different story. Unbeknownst to me, the third of the five steps had a higher rise than the first two. This time when I hopped my heel caught the front of the third step and I nearly stumbled, catching myself by lowering my surgical foot to the ground. Of course, Nurse Marjorie saw the entire encounter and asked how I expected to continue backwards. I deliberated only for a moment with the sudden realization that the backwards idea wasn’t so hot after all.

I decided to start over. The remedy required that I hop back down the three steps that I had gained, followed by the six-step pirouette to face the steps. I was ready to try another approach – this time sans the walker. I passed the walker to Marjorie and then applied a death grip to the two railings on either side of the steps. After the requisite gnashing of teeth, I began hopping. This time frontwards with a clear view of the steps. I made it. After a short rest stop at the top, I finally gained admission to the front door.

Once indoors I made a beeline toward my easy chair, hopping, of course. By the time I eased my bulk into the chair I was winded a second time and it felt pretty good to rest my foot and leg on the extended footrest. I spent most of the rest of that day in that position with only negligible pain. I mumbled to Marjorie that this recovery thing wouldn’t be so bad, it seemed. The only remaining challenge for day one was to undress and then climb into bed with the behemoth bandage still attached to the bottom of my surgical leg just as the doctor had insisted. I tried to forget about it as I lay quietly before sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night, the bandage came back to haunt me. In my drugged state I was in the middle of a Stephen King novel where the protagonist (he looked a lot like me) was struggling with an unwanted growth on his right foot. He was determined to rid himself of the outrage, finally yielding to the notion of simply cutting the thing off with a large butcher knife.

And then I woke up. I had the sheets and a blanket inextricably wrapped around my football ankle and I was sweating after my fight with the bedclothes. Thus ended my first day of recovery.

As the second day after surgery blossomed so did the pain from my football wrapped ankle. The sudden waves of pain seemed a mystery. And then I remembered the surgical nurse saying that the anesthesia should remain effective for 24 hours … that was yesterday, and the day two morning was about the 24-hour due date. After a few minutes of the pain waves, I had a sudden urge to begin counting the pain pills that had been prescribed for me. Fortunately, the pills were effective, and I stumbled (make that hopped) through the rest of day two, being waited on hand and foot by Nurse Marjorie.

The following 10 days passed by in similar fashion until it was time to re-visit the doctor and have the football removed so that my foot was visible for the first time since the surgery. The nurse seemed unusually pleasant as she removed the outer layer of the bandage to reveal a thick layer of cotton hiding my foot. As she worked, the reason for the cotton became apparent; it was to prevent a puddle of blood from becoming visible at each of the three incisions. Apparently, the nurse expected such things as she quickly removed the cotton to expose the incisions; a six incher on top of my ankle, a four incher on the side, and a one incher at the very bottom of my foot, directly below the six incher.

The nurse kindly pointed out the sutures that consisted of both staples and stitches. She quickly bent to the task of removing the staples with a tool that looked an awfully lot like a pair of pliers.

“All finished?” I asked hopefully.

“No. I have to remove the sutures now,” she said. “Then I’ll go get the doctor to examine your foot.”

The doctor arrived shortly. He also seemed unusually cheerful as he bent over for an intense examination of my foot. Somehow, he was able to ignore the bruising of my toes, the swollen state of the foot from my toes to my heel, the drops of dried blood that remained at the edges of the incisions, and the already apparent scaring at the incisions that were almost closed. He looked at me with a smile. “Your foot looks good,” he said. “I don’t see any problems so you can move into the next phase of your recovery.” I wondered about the doctor’s vision as he continued.

“So, the nurse will finish cleaning up your foot and you will go to the office with the sign ‘Bracing’ and they will fix you up with a boot that you will wear for the next four to six weeks. He went on explain about the boot and the need to wear it every day, all day long with the walker.

I should have remained silent but honesty and my curiosity overwhelmed me. “In bed?” I asked.

“That is what I would prefer,” he said.

Here I am in my new boot for phase two of my recovery. You can see that I won’t be dancing for awhile. Maybe you’ll hear me as I clunk around with the boot and the walker.