day 34

The foot has basically stabilized with small daily improvements. I can stay up for quite some time - 2 hours or more. It really doesn't hurt from the swelling any more, but I'm not on it all day either. Since I'm still non weightbearing, it's hard to really be up for longer than a few hours - there's just so many things you can do when you rely on crutches. I think I could handle more up time. The foot does turn purple after being up for a while, but it just is not as painful as it was, and I'm grateful for that. I still take Tylenol in the AM, and have been taking a Vicodin in the PM, but am going to try to just do Tylenol tonight. The pain is more of an intermittent dull pain in the places they cut bone, and the toes (which are probably the most painful areas) have shooting, semi-intense pain at times. Overall, pretty manageable.

Other things have gotten better too. For almost 3 weeks or so, the only way I could keep the swelling down was to lie on my left side with the foot higher than the knee which was higher than the hip. That was a hassle! It was really hard to pretty much live on my left side. I can now lie on my back with the foot up and don't have to always have it over my heart either. I've been able to sit outside and read, which is nice because the weather is beautiful right now. I'd actually go weed the yard if I could figure out a reliable way to get up and down on one leg. I'm hoping that once I'm 50% weight bearing that I can do yard work. My husband would welcome the help.

One week from today the toe wires come out! Hooray!!! I'm really hoping I can begin 50% weightbearing then, too. The foot feels so good; hopefully that isn't just teasing me into thinking things are healing faster than they are.

One last thing - my scars are tiny and thin. It surprises me because I've had more surgeries than I'd like to think about and these are the nicest scars I've ever had. I think that in a year, you will barely be able to see them. Too bad they couldn't do that with the ones on my tummy.