Day 9: cheilectomy recovery

Not much to say today - more of the same. I did try to hold off on the pain medication today but that does result in intermittent deep pain after 6 hours or so... and that’s while resting with my leg elevated (not while on my feet). The worst my foot hurts each day is right when I wake up (when I haven’t taken pain medication for 8 hours or so). Definitely not gonna say bye to the pain meds just yet.

Also remembered that at my next doctor’s appointment I want to speak specifically about my ability to return to the gym (Pilates reformer, cycling, swimming, seated/recumbent stair climber), as well as the Cartiva cartilage implant… Which I am very curious about for way off in the future.

Since there isn’t much to say, why not look at some pictures of my son’s feet when he was a cute, easy baby?

Take care of your feet, son.

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All about my feet... and, why I started this blog

This week I turned 39. I will have a cheilectomy on my right foot (the foot I use to drive) in one month. In the years during college, and more than a decade afterward, I lived in Chicago. I love fashion and wore a lot of high heeled footwear. Given that I lived in a large city, I walked almost everywhere I went - a block to the grocery, several blocks to the train station, a couple miles during a day of shopping and fun with friends. I loved city life and I loved walking. I realized quickly, upon moving to a big city where my walking would total miles each day, that high quality footwear was important, so I did not skimp on inexpensive, poorly made shoes. I invested in well-made shoes. I say this for no other reason than to dispute one idea put forth as a cause of foot problems - that poorly made or ill-fitting shoes are to blame. That was not the cause in my case. Following the birth of my first child at age 31, I started to notice that I was not able to walk comfortably in high...

Day 18: cheilectomy recovery

I’m really starting to round the bend in terms of feeling normal again. Don’t get me wrong, I am a long way off from walking normally in shoes, but with the boot I can move through life and do almost anything I need to do… Well, anything one can do in a giant ski boot type thing. This weekend I spent a lot of time on my feet - playing with my children, potty training one of said children (oy), doing laundry, in the kitchen. I drove on the interstate, and in some busy traffic, and felt fairly confident. It’s not normal driving conditions for me but I know how to work within my parameters and it’s going ok. I noticed this evening that I was walking more comfortably around my house in flip-flops. Whereas the last few days I’ve tried flip-flops, but have had to walk by kind of rolling each step on the right side of my foot (to protect the left side of my foot where the surgery occurred), today I find that I can kind of bear weight evenly on my foot and even push off on it a little bit. T...

Day 2: cheilectomy recovery

I woke up on day 2 to great pain... despite having been taking the maximum amount of pain medication prescribed to me. It was very demoralizing. I slept poorly night 1 into day 2, probably in part because I wore the immobilizer boot in bed. It protected my toe but made middle of the night moving around highly clunky and difficult. (Think sleeping in a ski boot.) I didn’t sleep for the first 4-5 hours of the night... maybe a bit of dozing but nothing deep. I did sleep a little more deeply for a couple of spells in the last half of the evening. So, upon waking up I was not only in pain but very, very tired. As a result, I slept off and on for the entirety of day 2. The good news was that the pain, which was much worse than anything I expected, was horrible in the morning but eased up as the day went on. By the time I went to bed on day 2, I felt like I could deal with the situation. I even decided to take a slightly lesser amount of pain medication overnight from day 2 into day ...

Notes on a Cheilectomy

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