2 Weeks Post Surgery + CAM Boot

After my surgery, I spent 2 weeks in a soft splint/cast that came up right below my knee. I can't tell you how good it felt to be able to finally bend my leg after having that monster, thigh-high plaster cast on for almost a month.
The pain was relatively manageable. The doctor prescribed me Oxycodone, and I took it as prescribed for the first week, and decided to stop cold-turkey. I immediately started feeling like I was coming down with the flu, my whole body was aching, I was having cold sweats- it was the worst. After a month+ of being on painkillers, my body was NOT happy.

During these two weeks I celebrated my birthday, and actually left the house a couple of times, which really helped my state of mind a little bit.

On October 22nd, I had my two week follow up appointment at 830AM.

Now,I have discovered something invaluable. When you have free healthcare, take the earliest appointment they can get you. For some reason, this time around I was in and out in only 2.5 hours time. That's a record.

My actual appointment started with me getting my cast cut off. Now, the last time my cast had been cut off, my ankle just sort of hung there and felt completely disjointed. This time, it still felt weird, but I could feel the hardware holding everything in place. Nothing was drooping, which felt pretty nice actually. My foot/leg did look super disgusting though. I hadn't shaved in over a month, there was dry skin, blood….it was basically the Frankenstein of leg/ankles.

Next they had me get some x-rays. This was the first time I actually got to see what my ankle looked like. One plate 7 small screws and two big screws. For some reason I had expected there to be a lot more metal- at one point there had been talk of two plates, so I was pretty excited that it was only one.

My hardware

After the x-rays, this lovely young lady (I'm not sure if she was just a med student or a resident or what), cut off my stitches. She was really sweet. Stitch removal was not as horrible as I thought it would be, except for couple where my skin had already begun to grow over. She told me that this meant that my body was great at healing.

Once the stitches were removed, a young male doctor came in to talk to look at the x-rays and to discuss how to move forward.

He said that my x-rays looked great, but that they were going to put me in a cast for about a month to let the bones finish healing.

I asked the doctor if I could have the boot instead. You see, I had read a lot of different trimalleolar stories, and the couple that seemed to heal the fastest were the ones that went directly to boot post surgery.
My doctor hesitated.
"I won't put any weight on it, I'm super responsible, I'd just like to start working on the flexibility and foot strength and not be in a cast or another month", I promised.

The doctor considered this, and then asked me to wait while he consulted his supervisor. The med-student/maybe doctor girl said that I had a good chance, but that it was usually protocol to put people into a cast, because most people who got the boot tried to walk on it, and often had to come in the get another surgery.

I reassured her that I had NO intention of doing anything that would make me have to go into surgery again.

Then the supervisor doctor came in, and I must say he looked really dapper in a bow tie and suit. He looked at my foot, and told me I looked trust-worthy and that I could have the boot.

I was elated. They fitted me for a black cam-boot, and then had me meet with a Physical Therapist who showed me different stretches, and strength building exercises.

It's actually pretty scary, trying to move and stretch your ankle to get range of motion back into it. I kept feeling like if I pushed too hard something was going to break. The PT said that feeling was super normal, and that if just did the exercises a couple of times a day, I would start seeing a noticeable difference.

And with that my new cam boot and I were discharged and sent home.

My foot at home, post-visit. I know my other foot looks super skinny and zombie like- it's not really THAT bad,but since the surgery, I have lost a little weight. I blame the fact that its A LOT harder for me to go eat diner food at 2AM now that I have a broken ankle.