Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Foot Surgery Follow-Up: Blame the High Heels





I can't believe I'm doing it.  My fabulous shoes.  Being disposed of.  I'm sad.  But it has to be done.  First I got rid of five pairs, shoes I haven't stepped into in years.  Then I got rid of my 4" heels, pictured below.  I wore the black pair to a wedding to go with my red dress.  I just loved that slight curve at the top of the heel.  Real sexy-looking, right?  The gray heels got more use, and I sometimes wore them to work.  Yep, I worked in 4" heels.  Ouch.  But they looked so good on my feet.

That pin you see in the photo beneath the 4'inchers is the 4" pin that was inserted into the toe bone during surgery.  It was removed 4 weeks post-op.  How did my doctor remove the pin?  Before I knew what was happening, the doctor simply yanked the pin out.  Let me repeat.  He put his finger in the hook, distracted me, and pulled with a jerk.  I'm happy to tell you that I did not feel a thing.  That was crazy surprising!



For days, during recovery from the surgery, I'd enter my walk-in closet and stare at my shoes.  I have shoes on a door organizer, shoes in a wall organizer, and lined and stacked on the floor.  So many kinds of shoes, most of them with heels.  It was inevitable that I would no longer be wearing most of them.  It's been five weeks since my foot surgery for a condition called hallux varus, a deformity of the great toe joint.  I first posted an article about this a couple days after my surgery.  If you missed it, you can read about it here.

Basically, a hallux varus is the opposite of a bunion.  A bunion is where the big toe is forced inward (inside of foot), and the hallux varus is where the big toe is forced outward.  The hallux varus occurs following the correction of a bunion deformity in which there is an overcorrection.  Hallux varus symptoms usually occur while wearing shoes which crowd the tip of the big toe on the inside aspect.  It becomes very painful, believe me.

My foot didn't heal according to plan.  The sutures should've been removed two weeks following surgery, but the wound was looking infected.  My podiatrist/surgeon took two swabs of clear fluid draining from the wound to the lab for testing, and it tested negative for infection.  That's the good news.  The bad news is the sutures had to stay in another week.  Days later, the wound wasn't looking any better.  He removed a couple of sutures and an unbelievable amount of clear fluid flowed from the wound.  The wound wasn't fully closed, but he removed all the sutures anyway,  and said it was necessary for all of the fluid to drain well.  I was given antibiotics to help me heal.  Since there was no infection, the doctor and I agreed the slow healing process had to do with a disease I was diagnosed with in 1998 called lupus.  Basically, my body was attacking itself.  You can learn about lupus here and here, and in a future post, I will share with you what it is like to live with lupus.

It is almost two months post-up and my foot is healing very nicely.  Still swollen, and the bruises are almost gone. Soon, I will get rid of my shoes with 3" heels.  Then I'll try on the shoes with 2" heels.  Any that give me pain will be given away.  I'm having a hard time with this, but it has to be done.  I won't wear them ever again.  I don't want anymore foot surgeries.  Everyone should heed my advice -- avoid bad shoes.  If you have any questions regarding my foot surgeries because perhaps you're having issues with your feet, please let me know.

Be kind to your feet.    
Source:  Bing Photo Gallery

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