cheilectomy-diary

 Gosh, four month mark already. Well, here's the update: the toe seems worse than it was at 3 months. Though in a way I think it's hard to tell whether it's just worse, or just different. The obvious clanger has been Covid-19 which I caught at the start of November and which had me off my feet (and pretty much in bed) for the best part of a week. After that it was a further week or so before I started to feel fit enough to resume the daily walks. Right away the toe was niggly. In fact, during the peak infection time with Covid and while I was laid up, I had stabbing pains in the toe joint where I had surgery. I also had similar in odd joints around the body - left shoulder, right knee, left wrist - which cleared up after a few days once I started to recover. I've read that this can be a symptom of the Omicron variant of the disease, so I'm guessing Covid is the chief suspect in all of this. Maybe also, being suddenly laid up and off my feet for almost two weeks at a...

It's been 3 months since I had the surgery. Whilst it felt like I took a bit of a nose-dive around 10 week mark, I've had my final review appointment with my surgeon, and I'm doing fine.  The wound is all healed up and isn't really that visible. I don't have much sensation on the skin around it, and that might come back eventually. There's minimal swelling and the range of movement is within 'normal' parameters for this type of intervention. It's not the same as the left side, and probably around the same as before the procedure, but I can walk pretty well.  I was concerned around the 10 week mark that I'd done something bad to the toe. But the surgeon gave it a thorough exam and suggested I might be over-doing things, suggesting I pull back from my 5-miles a day (which he described as 'excellent' at this point) and go easier on the tip-toe exercises. There may be a natural limitation as to how far the joint will move or allow me to walk ...