Wednesday part II….

Well, after cleaning some and spending time with my animals I decided to take a cool shower and wash my hair. My husband thinks I'm nuts because I prefer cool water to hot, but with how thick my hair is I get hot very easily and I hate feeling sweaty and sticky because of hair spray. So instead I shower under cool water to bring my body temperature down.

I hung out with my Mom for awhile and talked about all sorts of things. I asked her if she minded going with me to the podiatrist appointment (I admit it~ I was scared!) but told her if she didn't feel like it I didn't mind. I understood that she probably wanted some down time for herself today. If I had known what was coming, let me tell you, I would have BEGGED her to go!

My appointment was at 2:45, but I had to be there early to fill out the paperwork. So I got there around 2:20 instead. That almost wasn't enough time to do it all. Shortly after they got me into a room, took my blood pressure (which was high for me~ stress maybe?) prepped me and left me to wait. Then there was some confusion about my x-rays from the hospital 2 weeks ago, and after about a 20 minute wait the doctor came in. He was nice, and apparently pretty good. He asked me about the pain in my foot and where it was located, and then asked me about any major injuries to that foot in the past. I told him about when I was 15 and thought I had broken that ankle, but the doctor decided it was just a really bad sprain and had me on crutches for a week.

He shook his head in disbelief and said, " Okay, I'm going to try something. If it hurts you need to tell me when." I agreed, and immediately he went to a specific spot and squeezed between two fingers, top and bottom of my foot. The pain was so bad I jumped. I could still feeling that sickening thudding ache minutes later after he had stopped doing it.

He shook his head again and took a deep breath and said, "This is crazy."

I asked him what he meant, and he told me that in his years of practice he had never actually seen this injury until recently~ and I was the 3rd case of it. It's called a Lisfranc fracture dislocation. It's really hard to explain, but when I was 15 and had that "severe sprain" I had actually fractured a small bone between my 2nd toe and the joint below it~ and in doing so it dislocated the only ligament that held the toes in alignment. Since it was never treated or diagnosed I now have moderate-severe arthritis from the injury and my toes are no longer in aligment with the rest of my bones in my foot.  For now I have to have cortisone shots every 3 months or so. But in the next couple of years I'm going to have to have surgery to fuse the bones together to avoid crippling pain in that foot.

I had also told him that there was pain in my ankle too, which he felt wasn't connected with the other injury, so in office he made me do a series of x-rays on my ankle. When he came back he just shook his head again. He pointed out several places, and said that all of those areas were old fractures in my ankle from constant sprains over the years. Once again there wasn't anything he could do for me but surgery later on down the road if physical therapy didn't help me any. So for that I'm to start going to physical therapy 3 times a week for a month to see if I gain any strength back in that ankle.

I was blown away…I knew I had real foot issues, but I had no idea that they had been THAT bad. I've had pain and lots of sprains in the last 15 years, but I got used to dealing with it so I never thought to go to the doctor about it anymore. Now I wish I had.

But this is the fun part. Have any of you ever had cortisone shots? I've heard that they hurt, but I was NOT prepared for this. Needles don't normally bother me and I handle pain pretty well (I think)~ but this was beyond awful. I did okay until about the time he had the needle over an inch into my foot, twisting it around in different directions to spread the medication over the injured joints, and then dug in until he hit what felt like bone. I was whimpering and clawing at the chair, unconciously trying to climb out of it to get away from it. LOL. But then he was done, and suddenly the pain diminished. My toes didn't hurt to move. My foot didn't hurt to move! And when I stood up there was barely anything more than minor discomfort~ I could stand on it again!!! Yaaaaaay! I could've kissed that doctor!

Right now I'm doing pretty good with it~ there's swelling and bruising from the injection site, but I'll gladly take that over what I've been dealing with. I forgot what it felt like to not have pain in my foot~ yes, it's been that long. He told me that for alleviation at home I needed to try to stay off my foot as much as I could, and ice it and take anti-inflammatories. For exercise I'm only supposed to swim or bicycle from now on to avoid making it worse. I'm going to try to go as long as I can without surgery. I think my hubby is going to get me a nice bike now! 😀

Other than that, I came home, turned around after picking up my husband, picked up our son and grabbed a bite at Taco Bell, then headed to his Mom's house. I behaved myself, and avoided too much conversation with Pam, and ended up spending most of my time talking to his sister and Grandpa Jeff (Pam's husband~ he's such a sweetheart!). We stayed until around 7:30 and then had to go home to get Zachary in bed.

So this evening has been peaceful, despite my fears. Pam was pleasant but distant (which is fine), as was I. And know I'm sitting on the downstairs porch gettting ready to go to bed. Thank you all for you positive thoughts and prayers and kind words. They've been a great comfort to me.

Have a great night, and hope to talk to you all tomorrow at some point.

~Key