Alright so, Obviously I slacked a bit on updating everyone on my foot. Its been 3 months and a week or so since my surgery (was on Feb 25th 2011). I feel like I’m almost completely back to normal and its great. Here are some things that I’ve been doing over the past two months.
I was getting ready for a vacation (a cruise!) in mid-May, so I started riding an exercise bike. I hadn’t been completely cleared yet to do everything so I thought that would be a great low-impact workout. I started riding on April 1, until my doctor appointment on April 19th. At that appointment the doc told me that my scar looked exactly like he wanted it to. You can barely see it now. In fact, here is a picture I just took!
- A photo from today, you can hardly see the scar. 6/5/11
It looks great to me! Anyways, My big toe joint was very stiff. It was bothering me some. Of course I think I was having recurring nightmares that the pain from before surgery would come back. He told me my joint would be stiff for a while and told me to just try to stretch it out, so thats just what I did. I was not allowed to wear my orthotics though for another month, but I am supposed to wear those pretty much all the time going forward. He also said “you can do whatever you want now”. Great!! I had told him I definately wanted to be able to jog again, it was a goal of mine. So.. that week I started back at the gym.
There is an indoor track at my gym, so every day I would walk a couple times around the track focusing on walking correctly and stretching that joint. It had been so long since I could walk normally this was very hard for me. I had gotten used to walking on the outside of my foot. After walking I would use the elliptical machine for cardio and then weights following, and end with more laps around the track. Eventually the walking got easier and easier.
I went on my cruise and even wore flip flops for the first time in who knows how long! I know I know.. I probably said I would never wear them again, but its really hard to go to the pool and not wear them. Also, I had the surgery so I could be NORMAL again! So.. I got some nice memory foam flip flops that are real nice on the foot! Anyways, my foot did great on the cruise, I wasn’t in pain except if I was on it all day, it would still swell up. Still had a case of the sausage foot at the end of most days, but nothing like the pain I had before the surgery. I was very pleased on how well it did on the vacation which was 8 days long!
Back to now… I have made TONS of progress since the cruise. A week after, I was able to stand almost on a full tippy-toe on my foot. This may sound stupid, but if you went through all this, you would know thats a breakthrough! So, I decided I would try to jog, and finally, I was able to jog a little! I didn’t want to push it so I would run 1/4 of the track and then walk the rest and repeat. However, last week I decided it was time, so I put Eye of the Tiger on the old ipod shuffle and was off! Proudest moment ever. After all the hard work, I ran over a mile last Tuesday! I took off Wednesday – but only because I was so sore from not running in well over a year, haha – but ran again on Thursday. It felt great!
So… what I’m getting at is. Do I think other people should have this surgery? ABSOLUTELY! If you are in any pain like I was before, which was constant, and throbbing, then go for it! It’s still getting better and I realize that, but when I was able to jog at the gym for the first time since January of 2009- thats HUGE! The surgery and recovery is hard, but it was so very worth it in the end! Please post any comments with specific questions and I’d be glad to help. I know I slacked off on my updates, but really, its because I’m out living my life instead of sitting home babysitting a hurt foot!
Until next time….
kimsfootstory 