Good Post-Op Appointment ....

The post-op appointment today with Dr. B went well and was pretty uneventful. As it turned out, he didn’t have to remove the long stitch as I thought was going to happen. He cut both ends of the suture material and that was it. The long part that was under the skin stays inside. He thought it looked good for the 2-week mark (relatively early for skin healing).

I can get the incision wet now and can drive. I can wear a shoe, but I’ll need to get creative w/shoe wear due to swelling. During the day I’ll keep it covered, so nothing rubs on it quite yet (for several more weeks), but at night he said to let it get air while sleeping. He prescribed an Rx for an antibiotic cream to prevent the possibility of a skin infection starting.

As for what he found during surgery, it wasn’t as “bad” as he anticipated. The tendon that was so huge was the lengthened tendon from the surgery last March and it had a bunch of un-dissolved suture material and the senovial fluid was too thick inside the tendon. He cleaned it all out. There was scar tissue and inflammation, but nothing that was majorly wrong or of big concern. He said that the tendon may decrease in size over the next year …. if it doesn’t, I didn’t get the idea that it was a big issue.

I about panicked when he said that the tendon area that he cleaned out was the one that we had lengthened last. I really didn’t want anyone to mess with that in fear that something might get altered or messed up, but we didn’t exactly know where the problem was until he opened it up. Nothing appears to have gone awry w/the tendon as for positioning (I’ve been checking the toes like every 30 minutes today).

Re: Pathology report ….. The initial path report has come back totally clean (big praise), but it will be another 4 weeks, before we have the final “official” report back.

As he said, it is somewhat of a “catch 22 situation” ….. ideally he’d like the path report to reveal something substantial so we’d know a cause and would be able to treat it & prevent it from happening again. On the other hand, he doesn’t wish a big medical problem on anyone. He didn't want to prescribe a bunch of medications today, not knowing if they were really needed.

At any rate the incision appears to be closed now, for which I am very thankful. Time will tell if it stays closed, but we are praying & hoping for this to happen. If it was going to open again, it would likely open sooner than later (the further we get out time wise, the better). I’ll carefully be “babying” the area for the next 4-6 weeks & will be overprotective of it. The skin on the entire foot looks like it needs some TLC.

I feel like the foot needs another 4-6 weeks before it feels back to normal again. Although I’d love to truly get to the bottom of all of this w/the path report, I’m so happy that it is closed that I’m content with just getting it closed. Keep praying that the area stays closed, continues to heal, path report, and no skin infection occurs.

Thankful for Dr. B’s expertise, his willingness to help and for the healing that has already occurred.

Happy weekend to you …. (toes are thankful for socks on this chilly weekend)

je