Follow up #1

Warning! This article features graphic post-operative surgery photos.

I had my first follow-up today. One week after my surgery. I was tense as the nurse began to unwrap my leg. I hadn't seen it in a week and had no idea what I was about to see. I had felt little tingles, itches and minor pain here and there, so I had visualized in my mind what things would look like. The gauze had a lot of dried blood in it, which was a little gross. But no fresh blood was there. I left the office with cleaned wounds and a brand new orange cast. I'll have the cast for one week. Now, I apologize for the photo quality. My camera was broken, so I had to borrow my son's. Here are the pictures with a little commentary:

^ Okay, this was a little incision in my shin right below my knee that I wasn't expecting. This incision had one staple in it, which was removed. What the surgeon did here was harvest some bone marrow from the thickest part of my tibia. He mixed this marrow with the cadaverous bone graft material to create a graft that contained my own cells, thereby further encouraging bone growth.


^ This little beauty is the incision for the Cotton Osteotomy. This is the procedure that will push my big toe back down to recreate my arch. This is the first time I've ever seen an arch on my left foot. The line above the incision is just a drawing mark. The blue color around the base of my toes is where blood settled after the surgery. It looks like a bruise. This incision hurt a little bit after surgery.


^ This is the big one. This is the "outside" or lateral view of my left foot. This incision was where the talo-calcaneal coalition was broken, reset and packed with bone graft. This is also where the lateral column lengthening was done, whereby the calcaneous was elongated to straighten my foot. Again, the blue coloring below the incision is where blood settled giving a bruised appearance. This incision doesn't hurt much, but I feel a lot of pressure here whenever I stand up on my crutches. It goes away when I elevate it.


^ This is looking up at my heel. This incision gave the surgeon access to the bottom of my heel bone where he placed the screw up through the heel bone into the talus. This incision gets a little sore when my foot has set in one place for a while. You can see another incision in the lower left corner. I'll explain it next.


^ Okay, this is the last one. This is a shot of my calf. The wrinkly places are just impressions from the old gauze. The incision gave the surgeon access to the Achilles tendon, just below the calf muscle. The surgeon made a small incision into the tendon, which relaxes the tension on it. When the heel bone is repositioned it can pull the tendon tight. This helps relieve that.