day 59

I can't believe it's been almost two months! When I look back, I remember how hard it's been, but in hindsight, the time has gone fairly quickly. I remember my first doctor appointment. When in the waiting room, I watched people in various post surgery phases coming in for their appointments. Patients came in wheelchairs, on knee walkers and bearing weight on crutches. Observing them all, I kept thinking, "I'll be there someday." My next appointment won't even be on crutches. Very exciting.

It's easy to sit here, look back and talk about how well things went. The day to day, moment to moment, was and still is hard. For me, I am so close to 100% WB that it is hard to not just fling those crutches away and walk. I've come so close. That's probably why the swelling is a bit worse. I want to go hop in my car and drive. Really, the thing that stops me from just driving around the block to test things out is the fact I'd have to do it without the boot. That's a scary thought. The boot means protection and I'm not quite ready to take it off yet. To top that off, life doesn't always cooperate with what is going on with our bodies. As I've said, my Rottie had ACL surgery and I now have to take him out on leash. That sounds a lot easier than it is. This morning I finally got frustrated and dumped one crutch as we were negotiating the too narrow ramp off of our deck. That made things easier to hold onto the leash, but the one crutch was awkward. I was using it on the bad foot side, but have been practicing and it is easier on the good foot side. I think I'm going to one crutch it most of the time now because I definitely can do it while maintaining the WB restrictions. I don't know what we would have done if the dog had needed surgery when I was non WB. You do what you have to do, but it certainly would have been challenging!

Overall, my foot feels good. I'm off pain meds. I did want a Tylenol last night, but collapsed in my chair and pretty much forgot about it. I'm putting 75% (and sometimes more) of my weight on my surgery side, I'm confident I will be at 100% on schedule, which is in 1 1/2 weeks or so. It is possible I may be comfortable doing full WB ahead of schedule. I spoke to the nurses last week and they said that theoretically I could be 100% then, but I would have a lot more pain and swelling. They have found that doing it gradually is much easier on the patient, but that I am healed and to use my judgement. If it hurts, I've pushed too hard. Again, I can't believe I'm almost there. It's surreal.

Pain - 1, swelling - 2 - 4.