Apr 24th, 2024

Author: donich_admin

How the mighty have fallen

R had to go away for a conference overnight last night.  The dates have really worked out very badly with my operation because he had all this booked in advance.  But because we were just presented with a fait accompli for the operation dates, not only did I have to cope with the pre-op and the operation itself on my own, but I also had to survive on my own yesterday and today.  J who would normally have come to stay with me was away in Norfolk as sadly his Mum has just died.

I was actually quite worried about this before I actually came back from the operation, because according to a lot of the stuff I read on the Internet, at this point (12 days out from the op), I would be flat on my back with a hugely swollen foot and protected from agonising pain by large quantities of opiates.

In fact I have been fine today.  I made myself some lunch (the “how mighty” quote was a reference to the fact that my meal was hardly haute cuisine) and some coffee.  I stood up from the wheelchair to make it with no pain in my foot (I didn’t put more than minimal weight on it), and the only real difficulty was carrying the stuff back down the hall.

Ham, tomato and mozzarella toasties with olives.

I have actually developed a technique for carrying things, in that provided they are not too heavy or awkward, I can hold them in one hand, push the wheelchair with the other, and steer with my feet.  This works for cups of coffee but wouldn’t for pans.

In general I would say that as far as immediate recovery from the foot fusion went:-

Day 1 and 2 – groggy and in pain.  I was about alright to watch TV and play DDO, but the night of day 2 I was in quite a bit of pain.  I took 2 30mg codeine on day 1 and 3 on day 2.  Also ordinary paracetamol every 4 hours.

Day 3 – less pain but still feeling groggy.  I realized at this point that the codeine was causing the drowsiness and making me feel sick as well so I decided to do without it (I have to say that I am not a fan of it in general – the side effects seem worse than the actual pain).  I took a few paracetamol.

Day 4 – feeling okish  by now.  Stopped all painkillers although still a little pain getting in and out of wheelchair.

Day 5 onwards – all normal activities that can be done from wheelchair resumed.  Feeling fine in myself, no pain or as far as I can ascertain, swelling, in foot.

Day 11 onwards – started standing up to do basic tasks using bad foot for balance only.  I did lots of leg exercises and 100 situps.

I’m going to the hospital tomorrow to get the stiches out and receive further instructions.