In one sentence, getting that bunionectomy on my left foot was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Even though it cost a lot (my school’s medical insurance wouldn’t cover any of it), I’m not in pain anymore! When I had the bunion, it was always so red and swollen and painful just to touch. I tried all the remedies mentioned in one of my previous posts, but they only helped temporarily. Since getting the surgery, I can walk without being in pain – well, my left foot isn’t in pain, my right one still is! But I will get the right one operated on when I graduate from school, because I don’t have a long enough break before then.

A bunionectomy, especially an austin bunionectomy, is very painful, and has a long recovery time. I couldn’t walk for a good eight weeks – six of those on crutches, then another two in an air cast. And, after that, walking was still painful for a couple of months. But as of right now, I have full range of motion back in that toe/foot and NO pain at all. None.

If you are going to get bunion surgery, I highly recommend getting physiotherapy afterward. I cannot stress that enough!! It can be costly depending on your insurance company (luckily my insurance covered 80% with a note from my doctor) but it is so worth it. My foot healed so much faster because of physiotherapy, and without it, I think the joints in that toe would still be very stiff and sore.

As for the scar… well, I don’t have any very recent pictures, but this was the scar in December:

It basically looks exactly the same now except a little less red. I will post a more recent picture soon!

So, all in all, I am very happy I got this done and can’t wait to get the right one done! More updates, pictures, and articles to follow soon.

Click to see full size.

Just before. You can see how much the pin is irritating the skin. Extremely painful!

Just after.

The pin.

I took the elastic bandage off pretty quick, to expose my gross scaly foot.

I can’t explain how good the water felt on my skin after 6 weeks! I had bought a special loofah just to exfoliate my foot with.

And, afterwards, smooth foot!

And my feet as a (somewhat) finished product.

And, finally, showing the difference in my range of motion.

Hope you enjoyed the photos! More to come as my foot progresses in its healing.

The pin coming out was a bit painful, but nothing near as bad as I was expecting. He had to twist it a lot in order to loosen it. When it came out, it bled a lot, and the doctor said that it was blood from the bone, not from the skin (hence why it was such a dark red). The bleeding stopped eventually, and he put some antibiotic ointment on the pinhole and bandaged it. My foot hurts 200 times less now than it did just 24 hours ago. The pin was pressing on the skin, and my skin was trying to heal around it; it was becoming so that every step was agony.

I still used crutches to get home yesterday, but I don’t really need them now, as long as I stay in my surgical shoe because I can’t put too much weight on that part of my toe yet.

It is such a relief having the pin out, I can’t describe it enough. I am going to make a separate post with before and after photos, but I shall leave you with the video I had my lovely boyfriend take!

The incision of my foot looks really good, it is healing up quite nicely. My foot is much less bruised, however it is scrawny! My foot has really atrophied since the surgery, even though for the last little while I have been walking on it (with crutches, but I still put some weight on it when I walk). I’m kind of worried about how it’s going to be when I return to nursing school in less than a month. I’m not sure if I should seek out physical therapy or not, or how much I should use it following the removal of the pin. I should write down some questions to ask Dr. L this Friday, and if I don’t get sufficient answers I can always call Dr. M I guess. Dr. L is having me wear a toe spacer now to keep the bone straight. It is uncomfortable, like I’ve said before, but I feel safer wearing it, the last thing I want is another bunion or a botched surgery!

Anyhow, here are some photos of my scrawny foot for your viewing pleasure. I forgot to mention that, two days before the dressing change, my gauze started coming off so I basically unwrapped it and re-wrapped it myself (which I wouldn’t have done if I wasn’t in nursing). So I have photos of my foot with nothing on it in my apartment, and also photos of after the dressing change. Click to see full size.

Check out how straight that foot is! NO MORE BUNION!

Because of the pain when they were coming out, I didn’t take any pictures during or after (except for the new dressing after the stitches had come out). I did, however, get lots of good shots of my foot before the stitches came out. And here they are for your viewing pleasure. Click to see them full size.

Sorry guys, it won’t let me put the photos side by side, so this will have to do, like in the last picture post. Click to view full size.

I went in for 11:30am like I was told to because I had to get various x-rays of my feet (I had some back in November before I even spoke to the specialist about the surgery). After getting the x-rays, I took the films back up to the office and then me, my mom, and Steve went for lunch at a tiny cafe next door, as I hadn’t eaten yet. I had a small piece of banana bread and some fruit, as I wasn’t supposed to eat very much. When the office re-opened after lunch, we went back up there and I took some “before” photos of my feet. By the time we got back, my podiatrist from Victoria had arrived to help with the surgery. I will refer to my doctors only by their initials, Dr. L (Victoria) and Dr. M (Vancouver specialist who did my surgery).

I was then given an Ativan by the nurse in order to make me sleepy and somewhat sedated. I figured when they said “conscious sedation” it would mean they would be giving me something stronger, but no. I thought the Ativan would work nonetheless as I had taken one a couple of years ago that knocked me out. I got into the chair and Dr. M, Dr. L, and the resident they had with them started scrubbing in. It took about 30-40 minutes to fully prepare everything, including painting my foot with iodine and prepping their sterile field. In the room where they do the surgeries, there is a TV with a VCR and remote, and they had a number of movies I could choose from to watch. I chose to watch “Liar Liar” because I hadn’t seen it in a while. There was one movie on the stack called “My Left Foot”, and being pretty nervous I started laughing hysterically because it was my left foot that they were operating on. I still have no idea what that movie is actually about, though.

The absolute worst pain I’ve ever experienced was when they put the freezing in my foot. I knew it would be painful, but I didn’t think it would be more painful than my appendicitis or my many head injections for migraine treatments. The first few needles weren’t too bad, but the last few were awful. This horrible, burning, searing pain between my toes and in the most sensitive places. Not the actual needles, but the freezing going in. I was actually yelling and squeezing the sides of the chair. Dr. M, who has wonderful bedside manner, tried to calm me down and told me “Hang in there, you’re doing great” which was helpful.

After they made sure I couldn’t feel any sharpness or pressure in various places in my foot, they started the surgery. The freezing had epinephrine in it, which made my heart race of course and made me even more wired and nervous. So when they cut into my foot the Ativan had not worked at all. I tried to lie back with my headphones and watch the movie and drift off, but I just couldn’t. There was a drape so I couldn’t see what they were doing, but I could feel everything, not pain, but pressure. The whole time I could feel them cutting and drilling and hammering and sawing. It was awful.

At one point, shortly after the surgery had started, Dr. M said to me “Do you want to see your foot? It’s not that bad” and I believed him, so being a nursing student I said “Sure”. He held my foot up, which had been cut into and the skin was being held apart, and I could see all the bones and tendons. Then he told me to flex my big toe, so I did, and I could see everything moving in my foot. It was kind of neat, but pretty gross. I lay back down and I got a huge wave of nausea. Being sure I was going to throw up, I told them, and the nurse brought me some cold water and an ice pack to put on my head. That helped a little bit.

I continued laying there freaking out throughout the whole 2.5 hour surgery. I tried to concentrate on the movie, but couldn’t, and I kept wishing the Ativan would kick in. I just couldn’t get over the disgusting feeling of being able to feel everything they were doing. Eventually, the surgery was done, and Dr. M showed me my stitched up foot and where the pin was sticking out before bandaging it. He also injected a long-lasting freezing into my foot to ward off pain for a few hours.

After the surgery, I hobbled out to where my mom and Steve had been patiently waiting for me, and with much help, got upstairs because I had to get “after” x-rays to make sure the pin was in the right place. I had to wait a long time to get the xrays because of the amount of people there, but eventually I got in and got them done.  Dr. M and his resident then came up to look at them, and said they looked good. He talked to me a little bit about recovery, gave me a sheet about the recovery, and a prescription, and left. I hobbled back to the car and lay across the back seat with my foot up on three pillows. I barely remember getting into my parents’ house, but somehow I did and I lay on their reclining couch with my foot up.

My brother and sister-in-law came to visit me later that evening, and while they were over I got this horrible stabbing pain in my foot. It got so bad that I was actually crying. I took the maximum amount of the painkillers I had been prescribed, which really weren’t very strong to begin with, and they weren’t helping at all. Dr. M had given me his home and cell numbers, and with reluctance, I called his cell. He answered and I told him about the horrible pain and how the painkillers weren’t helping. He said I could go to a clinic to get something stronger, and told me to hang in there, which was not super helpful, but at least he was caring.

After not sleeping at all on Monday night, I got up, got dressed, and got ready to take the ferry back over to Victoria in the car with my mom. Her and Steve brought me some food while I stayed in the car with my foot up, but I couldn’t even eat it, I just wasn’t hungry. Shortly after we got back to my place, I felt really sick and threw up. Now not only was I sick from the painkillers, but they weren’t even helping! So less than an hour later, my mom drove me to a walk-in clinic.

Luckily there was no wait at the clinic, and I had a nice doctor there. I told him what I had done to my foot, and that my painkillers were not working and making me sick. He prescribed me Percocet, a strong narcotic, and we went to the pharmacy to fill it. I would have waited in the car except here in Canada you have to sign for narcotics. It didn’t take long and I took one as soon as I got home. Eventually I fell asleep, for the first time since Sunday night.

Last night our friend who lives in our building came up to see me, and it was great to see her. I only vaguely remember her visit though, as the Percocet made me quite sleepy and a bit doped up. That’s okay though, my mom and Steve entertained her.

I got some sleep last night, but the Percocet is making me quite nauseous. My foot is still throbbing but at least Percocet is helping a bit. My mom left this morning as she has to work tomorrow. I am parked on the recliner with my foot propped up, and Steve is being great at getting things for me and taking care of me.

I will write soon, but I will leave you with how my foot looks at the moment. A couple of these were taken with my phone, so sorry for the bad quality on some.

For those who don’t know, a bunion, or “hallux valgus”, is “an enlargement of bone or tissue around the joint at the base of the big toe (metatarsophalangeal joint). The big toe may turn in toward the second toe (angulation), and the tissues surrounding the joint may be swollen and tender. Today the term usually is used to refer to the pathological bump on the side of the great toe joint. The bump is the swollen bursal sac and/or an osseous (bony) deformity that has grown on the mesophalangeal joint (where the first metatarsal bone and hallux meet). ” That definition was taken from this Wikipedia article, which also explains more about formation, treatment, and why people have surgery done on them, which can be summed up in one word: pain!

In three weeks I am having surgery on my left bunion, and then after that, I get to spend the next 8+ weeks on my couch unable to walk. I’m going to be doped up on some awesome painkillers, while simultaneously learning several new hobbies such as knitting and making cute stuffed animals, as well as watching tons of movies and playing lots of games on my new Wii (but at the same time, will be temporarily saying goodbye to Wii Fit!).

But what could make all of this even more fun? Blogging about it, of course! So I welcome you to the Bunion Chronicles.

This is how my feet look now! Ouchies!