Cheilectomy - Day 12

I went out last night! Whoa! OK so it was just a 2 minute drive to the local park to sit on a bench while a friend walked the dog, but it was amazing to be out. Made it feel like a bit of a milestone.

Last night was the most restless the foot as been. I kept being woken up with the toe going through full stretching. It felt pretty tired and achy this morning, but more mobile than it has been. Icing it this morning and taking a paracetamol for any swelling.

The area around the incision is lively in the evening now, and I can feel it more. Not pain, just healing I guess. Can't wait to get the bandage off. I've seen some posts where folk have had the dressing removed/replaced a few days after surgery, but my discharge notes clearly state NOT to disturb the dressing or bandage until the follow-up appointment 10-14 days after surgery (14 days for me). In fact, I watched a good video on how to do the type of bandage I have (linked to here Meyerson's Wrap technique), and it does look like it's specifically for supporting an osteotomy/bunion type procedure (which I've had), so it could be that a straight up cheilectomy isn't so reliant on the bandages staying in place.

I'm more mobile and actually was able to scoot around packing for a weekend away - am decamping to a friends for a bit of company and a change of scene. This would not have felt possible this time last week, so that's progress.

Keep on elevating, keep on icing. Onwards, and up...

Comments

Cheilectomy 5 months

As each month milestone approaches, it feels like the toe is worst than the month before, but when I read back, I can see that's a fallacy. I guess, as it gets better, I just measure its progress day by day, so some days it feels worse and some days it feels better. And that's kinda the lesson learned in this post. For example, the last couple of weeks we've had a cold snap in the UK (temperatures down to -2 in the daytime), so I've had to swap the trainers to more suitable walking boots (something I couldn't wear last month). I've been in the walking boots every day now for a couple of weeks. It feels roomier than when I tried the boots last month, so that indicates the swelling (from Covid probably) has gone down. It's more comfortable to wear the boots now, so clearly that's progress. I've been doing around five miles in them, but do find that it's a matter of one day on, one day off. So if I do a five mile walk one day, I'm not up for a...

Cheilectomy - Day 17

Still resting and icing and elevating. And the area of the surgery is still stiff, swollen and sore. But that's to be expected. I've been reading lots of blogs and other literature on the recovery to see if I can track my recovery. There are variables obviously - age, fitness, healing propensity, type of surgery and so forth - but it's really helpful (and often reassuring) to track your recovery along side similar experiences of folk who have had the same procedures. My go-to's are these: https://jemesouviens2004.com/2016/06/ https://cheilectomy-surgery-experience.northwoodswebdesigns.com/ https://cheilectomyexperience.blogspot.com/2013/07/table-of-contents-full-history.html?m=1 I've started doing my physio stretches as directed - 2 times a day for 5 minutes each session. There's really not much flex there at the moment (it IS quite swollen) and reading the other blogs, that seems to be fairly standard at this point, just over 2 weeks post-op. The dorsal flex (...

Cheilectomy - Day 14

Lots of mobility now - whizzing around doing everything for myself, except shopping and walking the dog. Can walk ok in the surgical shoe and do stuff like preparing meals and washing up, getting up and down stairs, walking to the car. Still icing the foot just to ward off any swelling, wiggling the toe and stretching it. Sometimes, without warning it has a sudden ache - similar but not as intense to the pain I'd experience often before surgery. Went out to the local tea rooms for a couple of hours with the Sunday papers, so feeling a little more normal. Looking forward to tomorrow when I have my post-op appointment back at the hospital, and to losing the surgical shoe and the bulky bandages.

cheilectomy-diary

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