One week out from surgery and I’m doing well. I’ve had almost no pain since my surgery. The nerve blocks I was sent home with lasted me four and a half days. It was strange living with a numb foot for so many days, but much preferable to the pain I would have had otherwise. It was an odd sensation pulling the wires out of my leg because they went in there a good couple of inches, but it didn’t hurt. They slid out easily and it was a great feeling to get rid of all that tape covering most of my thigh. Any pain I have had has been more of a discomfort. I’ve come home from work with my foot feeling a whole lot worse than I’m feeling now, so I really have no reason to complain about it.

The second day after my surgery, I woke up in the middle of the night needing the restroom. I was half asleep and trying to wrangle my crutches and I ended up losing my balance, stepping right on the surgical foot (which is supposed to be non weightbearing), and falling on that leg. It was a long night after that waiting for the doctor’s office to open to find out what they wanted me to do. I ended up having to go into the office so my surgeon could look at it and make sure I didn’t do any damage. Thankfully he said it looked fine and warned me not to make the mistake of using my crutches while I wasn’t fully awake.

Pretty much the rest of the week, I’ve just been laying around. I have to keep my foot elevated above my heart almost all the time. I’m only allowed to get up for 15 minutes each hour, and I’ve also had to ice an hour on and an hour off all day. Once my official follow-up appointment comes, I may get to have a little more leeway in being up and about; it’s all going to depend on what my surgeon says. I’m definitely ready to get out of the house for a while. It’s been a little lonely being cooped up and not being able to do much more than watch TV or read a book.

My biggest hope for this whole process is that I achieve a full recovery. My surgeon told me realistically that this surgery has about an 80% success rate, and a lot of that is going to be dependent on how well I follow all the rules and the physical therapy regimen. I’m keeping my hopes high!