Michelle's Surgery

Last Thursday, after school, we loaded in the van and drove to Provo to stay with Lisa and Mike so we would be closer to the Surgical Center for my foot surgery. About 18 years ago, more or less, I was goofing off with a friend and stepped off a curb funny. I hurt my foot but the doctor kept telling me that it was just sprained. It has hurt every since but I couldn't find anyone who would believe that anything was wrong. Finally, a doctor in St. George did an MRI on the foot and found a fracture. He did a few cortisone shots (wonderful things!) which gave me some relief but nothing permanent. Finally I went to a specialist in Provo who did a CT scan and found a cyst, bone spur and "junk" in my joint that needed to be taken out. So we scheduled surgery.

Lisa watched the kids while Bryan took me to the Surgical Center. I was there at 9:15 but didn't get into surgery until 11 a.m. They put me under general anesthesia, so I got to sleep, but then they did a nerve block in my calf which numbed my foot. It was supposed to wear off between 10-12 hours, but it lasted about 19 hours (lovely!). I woke up after 1 1/2 hours of surgery (it was supposed to be about 45 minutes but he found more "junk" than anticipated) absolutely FREEZING! The blood pressure cuff on my right arm was driving me nuts and alarms kept going off. Bryan told me the alarm was because my heart rate was so low (40-45) and the nurse finally asked if that was normal for me and I told her it was, so she muted the alarm.

After what seemed like forever in the recovery room, I was able to get dressed to be discharged. Now, they told me to wear comfy, baggy clothes and I thought I had. But I didn't anticipate this huge splint that was all the way to my knee! I barely got my pants on. Bryan took me back to Lisa's where we got the kids, I changed into my pjs and then we were off.

I slept most of the way home, which Ethan watching me closely in the backseat. We had to take one pit stop at a rest area where Bryan ended up giving me a piggy back ride to the bathroom, but other than that it was non eventful.

I can take the splint off on Wednesday (yipee because it's heavy!) but I'm on crutches for 2-4 weeks. I have a post-op appointment in two weeks to have it checked. Hopefully this will take care of everything.

My orange foot:

My splint:

My splint and my left leg so you can see just how big it really is (I heard one nurse say something about "overkill" but I was out of it so I may have imagined it)! Just think how big it would have been if the surgery was on my leg!