The pain! The pain!

I've been back at work for nearly a month and it is hard! I work as a Customs Officer so there is a lot of walking - airports are big places.

When I started back after 3 months off, I did 4 hours a day with a day off in between. Then I went to four hours one day and six hours the next. I'm now doing six hours a day for a shift of 6 days with 3 days off to recover. Next week I'm back to full hours. 

It's 17 weeks since my op and I was hoping to be feeling a lot better by now. When I was at home on sick leave I was doing brilliantly but now I'm back at work I'm going backwards! I limp really badly. I've read that I shouldn't (a similar problem to me) but I can't walk any other way. I wear big steel capped boots for work which should support my ankle but maybe they are too heavy and are putting stress on it. The problem is I cannot work if I'm not wearing them. I usually have pain sitting around 3-4 and always feel like my ankle needs clicking back into place. I can't get the pain down below this even with tramadol or naproxen (or both when I'm really desperate). I also can't take tramadol when I'm working.

Today I was doing stuff around the house and suddenly my ankle went up to 8 on the pain scale. I'm back to thinking an amputation sounds good 😆. It isn't swollen; it just felt like someone was trying to cut through it with a blunt pair of scissors. I had to sit down immediately. My husband got me my crutch, which I hadn't used since my cast was taken off. I hobbled upstairs and put it up. He suggested that I use both crutches and be non-weight bearing but when the foot is suspended it feels like it's just hanging by a thread of skin.

I've read a lot of accounts from people who have had the surgery in other countries and they seem to have a much longer time in casts and non-weightbearing. Everyone seems to have been in a cast, whereas I had the option of just being in a moonboot. I'm really nervous that I am doing damage or interfering with the healing because of my surgeon's quick return to weight bearing. It wasn't reassuring looking at the X-ray and being told it looks good but you can't really tell if it's fusing until the 6 month mark.

My work limits the aids I can use. I wasn't allowed back in a moonboot and I can't use crutches. Fortunately I'm able to do duties that involve sitting, avoiding the standing tasks. I'm feeling like I've lost myself really and wondering if it was a mistake to have the surgery. Ironically I am in so much more pain than I was presurgery and I am causing problems in other parts of my body because of the way the ankle forces me to move. My lower back often seizes up, my opposite hip that had had a steroid injection to reduce a bursitis is back to the same level of pain and difficulty lifting it and the cyst on the back of my opposite knee hasn't improved pain wise despite a steroid injection in it.

I tried contacting my surgeon to check up on whether I'm progressing normally but she was in theatre. Her receptionist said that she would pass on my message via an email that I sent but she doesn't appear to be the best with technology. I haven't heard anything and it's been a week so I'm going to have to chase it up, which I hate doing. The pain makes me irritable and I get more intolerant of people. I'm turning misanthropic and totally relate to Sartre's quote "Hell is other people."

So life is not being a bowl of cherries but I'll just keep hobbling along.