Notes on a Cheilectomy

I’ve pretty much resumed normal life. I can live life normally, so to speak, on the immobilizer boot. It makes walking supremely comfortable on my right foot. It also makes life supremely cumbersome in that I have to remove it to drove, put it back in at each destination, etc... so a three errand trip involves removing or putting the boot on a lovely 6 times. It slows things down. My life is already slow and cumbersome with two kids in tow, so at least I’m sort of used to the patience aspect. What I’m impatient about is that I cannot live life normally without the boot. Wearing regular shoes is not comfortable for walking any distance. I’m starting to try and imagine what sort of footwear I will wear once the doctor says to be done with the boot (another week or two, not sure?)... and I’m perplexed on that. I wear comfy moccasin slippers around my house in the evening once the kids are in bed and I’m no longer on full time cook/chauffeur/maid/referee/laundress duties... those work ...

This screenshot, from my surgery date to yesterday, kind of says it all. My foot hurts today. It’s not easy when you look healthy, but your body isn’t back in action.

I’m definitely up and about on my feet a lot more in the last couple days. So far this week I have done school drop off and pick up for my son, run some errands, and gone on an outing to see Christmas lights by foot. Just in the last two days I have felt much more comfortable walking. Walking barefoot is by far the least comfortable thing I can do (it hurts)…  walking in sturdy flip-flop sandals is the most comfortable normal footwear I have worn… The surgical boot is by far still the most comfortable yet  by far the least convenient, as I have to remove it if I want to drive. For the Christmas light outing tonight, I even squeezed my feet into Ugg boots… Partially motivated by the fact that it has turned very cold here, and I wanted my feet to be warm. I walked fairly comfortably (albeit slowly and with a bit of a limp) in them, with the only hiccup being unrelated to the mechanics of my foot, but rather chafing and irritation on my scar. A sock probably would’ve solved tha...

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...