12 Weeks

So yesterday was 12-weeks post-op. This is when my surgeon said that she expected me to be back to normal.

Guess she expected wrong.

While the swelling is 96% gone (really only swells if I do too much) and the incisions are healed nicely, the foot itself is still painful to walk on and I am still not able to stride normally. The tendon is good some days and not so good other days, again depending on how much and what I do that day.

Flexibility comes and goes in the tendon. I have more range of motion if I'm easy on it and do gentle stretching exercises. But as soon as I go to full weight-bearing stretches, it gets tender, sore, stiff, and I am unable to do the stretches. Hm-m-m. Kinda like what happened with the previous (three) surgeries.

Time will get the tendon back to being pain-free but the physical therapists tend to be aggressive with their treatment protocol and the darn thing has to fall apart and get real inflamed before they back off and go a bit easier.

But the foot is what has me really depressed. Now I've never had broken bones so I thought that as soon as it was fully healed and the cast came off that I'd be painless. Wrong. Or maybe it's just me. But the the foot, which includes all the toe bones and the joint that was fused, are still extremely painful when I try to bear weight on them. And walking normally? OUCH! Again, not just the fused joint which is causing my big toe to have to learn to bend differently, but all the toe bones hurt.

I'm assuming it's because everything has been rearranged in there and has to learn to work in its new place, but pu-leeze, it should be done by now! I've been weight-bearing for 4 weeks now and there is little difference in the pain level over those 4 weeks.

And the level of pain in the fused toe joint is no different than before when it was frozen with arthritis and couldn't move. I feel like I'm no better off having the joint cleaned and fused than I was with the arthritis.

Other than being way poorer due to paying the surgery bills.

I am diligent about doing my exercises here at home, even to the point of crying after doing them because of the pain. I do stop when I experience pain as the therapists say that "pain is no gain". They don't want you injuring the injury, only stretching and strengthening it, so to do only what is painless. Problem is that doing the exercises generally doesn't cause pain, but as the leg rests afterwards, the pain starts and increases, then I can't do the second or third series of exercises that day. It's a vicious cycle.

I am not sure that the joint-fusing, foot rebuilding part of the surgery (which was done to prevent the tendon from re-rupturing again) was the right thing to do. I feel I'm no better off now than I was before the surgery.

I am be 'assessed' at PT today and have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. She was planning to discharge me from PT and from seeing her post-operatively, but not with the pain I'm still experiencing. We'll see what the doctor says tomorrow.

Sigh. Sniffle. Sigh.