1 Year + (April 6)

I was making great progress towards walking without the crutches until yesterday afternoon.  I was using only one crutch and putting nearly all of my weight on my foot when I felt a horrible pull in the achilles.  It dulled down but kept happening every time I would put any weight on my foot.  I ended up not putting much weight on it at all today and am hoping it is improved by tomorrow.  I am getting a burning pain in my heel that is similar to what I felt after the original osteotomy.  It comes and goes and seems to depend on the position of my foot.  I did just look and I do have bruising on the back medial portion so that may have something to do with it.  I'm still averaging about two doses of meds per day.  

Here are some updated pictures.

Day 25 (April 14)

Woke up today with my leg really aching.  This cast just feels too tight.  When I get up, my toes still turn dark purple and my leg above me knee even hurts like it isn't getting enough blood.  I also can't move my toes nearly as much.  I decided to call the doc's office and let them know.  I spoke with the surgical nurse and she said it may be too tight.  I was little worried about calling in again but she said to always call if there's a concern.  Makes sense.  So, I went in and had a new cast put on.  The med assistant even spoke with my doc before applying the new cast.  He said to go ahead and make it a bit more loose and put in some extra padding.  Wow, what a huge difference.  My toes are still turning purple but my leg feels a million times better.  One thing to mention, my calf muscle just hangs off my leg except for the area where the doc made the incision. That spot is still pretty hard and not sagging at all.  Very sore to the touch. 

I asked the nurse about alternating ibuprofen and aspirin to make sure I understood the benefits.  Said it would be fine to switch completely to ibuprofen or I can continue taking aspirin in the morning and evening and add ibuprofen in the middle of the day.  Any combination is fine as long as they are not within 6 hours of each other.  I also asked about the meds preventing clots and she said there are studies that have shown aspirin doesn't even help prevent clots.  I guess it's not clear.  She even said that they used to give patients a blood thinning shot but it didn't reduce the occurance of blood clots in those patients.  Guess there isn't an answer.  Most important is to balance moving around as much as possible while keeping the swelling under control. 

Throughout the whole process, my leg was down for over 2 hours.  Very pleased as it didn't even swell (very much). 

Here are some pics of the ankle, old, and new cast.

Old cast:

Ankle

New cast