Observing at it's most unique

In my last post I talked about issues I was having with my heel.  The original plan was to give it a month and see how it did.  If the pain increased before the month was up, I was to go back in.

That weekend we moved our daughter back to college for her sophomore year.  Thankfully, her apartment is on the ground floor, so there were no stairs to climb.  This benefitted not only me, but her as well.  She had foot/leg surgery over the summer and is still healing.  If either of us would have had to climb stairs it would have been a painful and comedic event.

By Monday morning I had given up on counting how many sharp stabbing pains I had had.  By noon on Sunday alone, there had been more than 10.  Monday afternoon I called my foot doctor. 

Wednesday morning was my appointment.  It was agreed that we needed to surgically fix my foot.  The problem was getting worse and we didn't want the nerve to sustain permanent damage, if it hadn't already.  Surgery was set for the following Thursday, the 28th.  I could survive one more week, right?  I was keeping my fingers crossed.

I've always said that if there was a positive to having diabetes it is that any surgeries are usually scheduled for the first of the day.  This one was at 11:30am.  I know that isn't first on the list, but the fact that it was going to be done with just a local anesthetic, I didn't need to alter my eating and starve after midnight.  I also was allowed to watch and take pictures.  (Don't worry.  I won't post any during surgery pictures.)

I know that not too many people would want to watch a surgery, let alone one being done on them, but I was looking forward to it.  I grew up hearing surgery stories told at the dinner table, so this was not going to be a problem for me at all.  The one fear I had was that he would get in there, and realize more needed to be done that couldn't be done with just a local.  Thankfully, the surgery was complication free.  In fact, my doctor even said he saw exactly what he expected to see.  That was very comforting to me.  I wasn't glad that I had to have the surgery, but I was really glad that there weren't any other problems.

I enjoyed watching and talking with my doctor during my foot surgery.  I did not get too many pictures, as the surgery was only about 15 minutes long, from start to finish.  The hardest part I had about watching, was keeping my leg relaxed.  My heel was numb, so that wasn't a problem, but I was afraid that I would tense my leg so much by trying to hold it still that it would twitch.  No such problem though.  No twitch, no error, and again no complication.

It has now been a week and a half since my nerve was given more room.  The sharp stabbing pains vanished that day, so did the bruised heel feeling.  I have been able to walk since that afternoon, but not well enough to go on my daily walks in the morning.  I am looking very much forward to Dr. Foot giving me the green light for those walks, and a normal shoe.  Post surgical shoes are just not that cute.