Day 13: Right Foot Issues?
noted earlier when I came out of surgery, I noted earlier when I came out of surgery, I had an open sore on the back of my right heel — a raw spot a little smaller than a dime.
Besides the sore, my right foot has been slightly swollen and quite sore to flexing since the surgery.
The thing is I’m sure I wasn’t experiencing any of this prior to the surgery. So, something happened in the operating room to that right foot.
Rose has been disinfecting it and dressing it after showers and the the good news is the sore has closed up, so I don’t think we’re dealing with any infection.
Foot Taking More Attention
The hip and thigh pain have been the most prominent pain I’ve been dealing with, so the foot has always been in the background.
This morning, however, the foot pain and stiffness really came to the fore. I was hobbling more than normal, not due to the hips and legs being stiff so much as that right foot really hurting.
I related this to Rose at the kitchen table, and she actually got down on the floor, peeled the sock and the bandaid and took a closer look: it definitely has healed over, there’s no redness around the wound, nothing oozing out of it. She applied pressure in a couple of points around my foot. Squeezing across my ankle bone produced a sharp pain. “Ow!” I exclaimed. “You found something…”
After she was finished, pronounced the foot as not looking like it was going to fall off or anything too drastic, I took my temperature as a final check to see if I was feverish (from potentially fighting an infection.) It was actually sub-normal, so there didn’t seem to be any hint of that (although Rose pointed out that by the time you’re feverish, an infection is likely very advanced.)
Well. Another issue. I’m resigned to watching it and trying to flex out the stiffness and pain walking and rotating it around. It does seem to get better with walking.
Physical Therapist Visit
This is the last day the physical therapist will visit. I related the foot issue to her, not that it’s in her purview, but that it is somewhat compromising my mobility — particularly my walking gait.
She checked it over superficially, as well, didn’t see anything concerning, and we proceeded to the final set of exercises. These went pretty smoothly, given my current stiffness.
Summary
I’m not sure what to think about the foot. As a diabetic, I have to be extremely watchful of anything abnormal about my feet.
I sent a message off to the surgeon’s PA over the portal describing the issue, and have called my podiatrist’s office as a matter of course. Neither have responded yet, so standing by.
That said, I’m still churning it over in my head. Now that it’s more prominent and I can differentiate it more clearly from the leg and hip pain (that is receding), I’ve come to a different thought: it feels more like a sprain than anything else!
If so (or maybe a hairline fracture?), it would explain the swelling and the pain/stiffness, especially after long periods of immobility, i.e. sleeping.
Something happened in that operating room, I’m pretty sure…