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.