Decision Day

Decision Day

Thursday, January 4th was my follow up with the surgeon to check on the results of the steroid injection and to make the final decision.

The injection did help reduce swelling, along with the icing and rest of the foot.  However, there was minimal pain reduction.  The continued pain perplexed the surgeon, as she thought the pain should have subsided, but that is an issue I will address in a later blog.

Needles don't usually bother me, but the steroid injection I talked about earlier was not too bad, it was the pressure and knowing what was going on.  The orthopedic tech told me, jokingly, that if you think this was bad, wait until your day of surgery and the post-op poking and prodding!  I always joke about needles and that I USUALLY don't have problems with them. 

The only exception is when someone starts to 'fish' for veins if they don't hit it at first.  When I was a new Evacuation Platoon Leader as a 2LT, we would routinely train our medics on starting IVs.  My Platoon SGT would routinely ask the rookie-medics to start IVs on the senior medics, and me.  I was the perfect pin-cushion as they had about 20 seconds to find the vein, and if they didn't find it and began fishing, I would pass out!  No pressure....

You Might Die, and Other Things...

 

It is one thing to sit on the clinical side of an Informed Consent and know that odds are nothing will happen and all will go as planned.  However, one must go over what MAY go wrong.  Infection, non-union, hardware may break, tendons cut, nerves severed, and other items.  When going over all the possible complications, one stuck out.  You may die.  Of course this has to be said and discussed.

However, on the more humorous side, I thought about a situation that must be addressed.  I didn't update my living will to include what should happen if the Zombie Apocalypse happens while I am unconscious?  If Rick Grimes had updated his, then he would not have had to deal with leading people around Georgia for eight years.  That was my real concern!

I did not want to wake up and see this.  If the zombies break through, just put me out!

 

 

It is a Go!

Monday, February 5th is surgery day.  All the paperwork is signed, Convalescent Leave is approved, work is covered and I have my non-weight-bearing assignments ready for me to accomplish.

My surgeon showed me the X-Rays and reviewed, again, what I should expect before, and right after surgery.  She showed me what my toe will look like afterward the surgery.  Bottom line, there is no going back.  Open up the joint, remove the cartilage, smooth the distal and promixal phalanges, drill a hole from the tip of my toe, through the both phalanges, take a ~2 inch titanium screw and insert it down the drill-hole.  the screw will compress the two bones together and over 8-12 weeks will become fused. 

 Not my X-Ray, but what my Right Hallux IPJ will look like after the fusion

 

Of course, as I researched this procedure, if I obey the weight-bearing instruction by the surgeon, I could be back running in June or July.  That means no weight-bearing for six weeks, partial weight-bearing for another six weeks, and then finally back to street shoes after 12 weeks.  A long time, but now there is an end in sight!