Spoiler alert: I made it!

After the removal of my screws I had no more heal pain. Hallelujah! Recovery was nice and reasonably quick. I just had to wait for my MRI to determine what was causing my ankle to forget how to ankle. I had an appointment set up and was hoping I'd have the results before New York.

The MRI was a piece of cake since it was only my foot and I'm used to being put in head first. I had an appointment for my review with the surgeon and things were chugging along. Then the clinic nurse rang to tell me I was booked in on a day my surgeon was away - they would have to reschedule. "Fine." I said "But I'm away 29th of October until 13th of November." This was noted and I was assured I'd be seen before then.

I kept on running and training for New York and waiting for my appointment letter. It arrived in mid-October and was set for ......November 3! I had to ring up and explain again that I was away then and I'd need rescheduling. An appointment would be sent out to me.

Finally October 29th arrived but no appointment. We flew out of New Zealand on a 19 hour flight to LA and then flew 6 hours to New York. We arrived very tired but managed to get out and check out Times Square.

The next few days were filled with preparations. We fought the crowds at the Expo and looked around New York in a relatively sedate manner.

Finally November 1st came around. We were on the buses to the start at 5:30am. Disabled athletes get checked by security before boarding the buses and then get driven right into the village - a very relaxing way to start. We had a tent to wait in and bagels to chomp on. The time to start came around surprisingly fast.

We started behind the elite women but in a different wave. Our little pack ran off filled with joy and a little trepidation (a lot on my part.). The course is relatively flat apart from the five bridges and a nasty hill up Fifth Avenue to Central Park and continuing up to the finish line. The number of people lining the streets was amazing. There was not one spot not filled. I had taken a tramadol when I woke
up because all the walking around had twinged my left hip and my ankle was twinging as well. This kept me going until halfway through when I had to take another one. My ankle seemed to have decided to ankle and we kept to my plan of running four minutes, walking one and always walking up hills and running down them.

And we finished! It was incredible. The best marathon ever.


We then had a great time visiting New York, San Francisco and Las Vegas, where I shopped up a storm at the outlet malls.

When we arrived back there was a letter with an appointment in two weeks time. I was hoping it was good news.

The MRI revealed possible osteoarthritis where the bones had rubbed. I was prescribed a steroid injection to determine if that was the case. If it worked we would know we had the right place and cause. I also got custom made orthotics made. They are really great - I don't even notice them which is a huge improvement on the previous ones which were off-the-shelf with bits of foam glued on.

The steroid injection was not fun. I had a registrar do it and he had two supervisors so must have been pretty new. It took a long time but he got the needle in perfectly. It's now been three weeks and I'm still pain free so that is fantastic. Previous experience with steroid injections have been very disappointing.

Something's missing

I've been following my post op instructions to the letter. I rested with my foot up for three days. I took off the crepe and cotton wool dressing after three days. Then I hit a problem. I was to leave the clear dressing on until day 10 but someone forgot to put the clear dressing on. I had ooze all over the crepe and cotton wool but fortunately it didn't stick. Then I had a healing but not yet close wound open to the air. I had to put on a temporary dressing until I could get a better one.

The heel is very hard to put a clear dressing on! I had to sort of wrap the op site round and it has wrinkles and crinkles at change of direction points. Still it's on and covering the wound and stopping any ooze getting out and hopefully any germs getting in.

The wound looks quite nicely done. There's a couple of whacking great black sutures sticking out but it's not much longer than the original. I'm at day 7 and can quite happily walk short distances on it. I'm not sure how long distances would go but we'll see. I have a bucket load of Tramadol left. I'm sure they gave me more with this little op than they gave me for the original. 

It was very handy getting the screws out because the following day I got an appointment for a head MRI. No need to enter big discussions about my foot metalware.

One year on

Everything had been going peachy keen for ages until about 6 weeks ago. Then the screws started to make themselves more apparent. Then the ankle suddenly went unstable and started clicking. 

I went to my GP and got a referral back to the orthopedic department. It was about six weeks wait including a cancellation of one appointment and then getting a new one.

I had X-rays and they felt that the screws were still stable so unlikely to damage any tissue. However the orthopedic surgeon agreed that they are palpable. She also examined my foot and decided the best thing to do was get the screws out and then do an MRI to see what else was happening. 

I went in on Tuesday and on Wednesday got a call to see if I could show up for surgery on the coming Monday! So tomorrow, Friday, I'm going in for a preop appointment with the anaethetist. Then I'll get sorted for the op and find out what to expect.

Ouch!

A month ago I started to develop pain in my ankle and a burning sensation at the back of my heel. The pain is around the end of the scar where my ligament was resectioned. It's always been really painful to touch at that point, massage was torture, but now it hurts even when I'm not touching.

I've gone back to doing my physio exercises and get some relief when I do the eversion exercises, like it pops back in place.  It's pretty similar to the pain I had due to the split but further up my foot. I'm hoping I haven't split it again! The screws are feeling more evident, that's the burning sensation but its copeable at the moment so I'll give it a while longer before I ask for removal. Unless things get more sore, then it'll be NOW!

I'm presuming it's not caused by my running again because I was told it was fine to do. Since I have my year planned out training for New York I'd rather not have anytime off my feet unless absolutely necessary. I'll give it a month and then if it's still not responding to physio and massage I'll have to bite the bullet and follow up. The earlier the better, I guess.