Bunionectomy

Perhaps this is gross and boring to everyone, but this is my life and I get to tell the story.  Last year, as the end of the year rolled around, we hit our insurance deductible.  That meant that we could go to the doctor or have surgery basically for free until the end of the year.  I had a bunion that had been bugging me a little bit since Joe was in law school.  Shortly after I was pregnant with Adam, I had orthotics made to help with my bunion.  Now, 13+ years later, it was hurting again when I ran or when I wore heels to church.  It wouldn't hurt a ton, but it would make wearing a lot of shoes impossible and my feet would hurt for several days after wearing heels to church.  My grandmother, Eleanor, had really bad bunions.  They must not have bothered her too much, because I don't ever remember her complaining about them, but they were very pronounced and often you could see them through her shoes because her shoes would mold to her different foot.  I decided that with that to look forward to, I would do the surgery when it would basically be free.  This is what my foot looked like before surgery.  I was pushing my foot over a little to show the bone, but not much.

 This was an xray of my foot at the end of surgery.  They cut one bone and moved it over and put two screws into it.  They shaved off the part of the bone that had previously protruded.  They cut a hinge in the upper bone to move the toe over and then put a large screw in that, to keep it in place.  After surgery, they never removed the screws.

After surgery, they wrapped my foot up and then put me in a walking boot.  I had a spinal block for pain so I couldn't feel anything for the first 24 hours.  I had to go up to the school, so I used crutches and felt great.  The second day, the pain set in and it was grueling.  Since I had felt no pain before it was very very painful.  Shortly after that I got really nauseous.  I didn't feel much pain, but I threw up about 50 times.  I was home alone and very miserable.  I could barely function.  This was definitely the lowest part of my recovery.  I was feeling great, pretty much pain free by 4 days out.  I had just the endof my foot wrapped and I wore a boot all of the time.

 I didn't have to go to physical therapy.  As long as the boot was on, my foot hurt minimally.  This is my foot after the wrap came off at two weeks.

 The stitches in the incision.

 A couple of weeks later.  I couldn't wash or get my foot wet under the cloth wrap.  My foot would get sweaty, so the skin would start to slough off down there.  At this point I started to notice that it was hard to move my toes, especially my big toe.

 Two weeks after that.

 Six weeks out.  At this point, the wrapping came off and I could wash my foot and wear sneakers.  My big toe was not very mobile, and it hurt a lot if I had to move it.

 

 This is post soaking my foot.  Did I mention, it smelled so bad before I washed it?  *shudder*

 At this point there was still quite a bit of swelling.  I still couldn't wear many shoes for a while.

 It took a few more months to be able to wear heels, because the angle of the shoe hurt my toe.  Running took a while to get back to.  My big toe hurt a little for most of 6 months.  Then it rarely hurt.  The swelling lasted at least 9 months.  This is my foot today, a year later.  The scar is minimal and the foot looks great.  It doesn't ever hurt and I can wear heels.  I think one of the things that having this surgery did was make me walk different on my foot.  I walk more on the outside of my foot, putting less pressure on the big toe joint.  I think that probably corrects the problem that caused the bunion in the first place.

Now sometimes when I run, the other foot bunion hurts.  I definitely don't want to do the surgery again, and my left foot doesn't look as bad.  I am trying to run/walk on the outside of that foot more to prevent having to do surgery.