I arrived at the hospital at 7:15 to begin the usual preparations: financial matters, monitoring of blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen, and placement of ports for IV--- all of the usual, I suppose. Of course, for the patient (me), surgery is the easy part. I floated away on a soft cloud of anesthesia just before 8:45 and gradually floated back to consciousness about 1 1/2 hours later with a truly giant cocoon of bandages from the tip of my toes to just below by knee. No pain. My surgeon, Dr. Stacee Kessinger of WestSound Orthopaedics, administered an additional local pain block after surgery to help me through what could have been a difficult first day. I kept my foot elevated for the rest of the day and strictly followed icing instructions.
I did have a tense hour or so in the early evening as I attempted without success to bend and flex my calf muscles inside that gargantuan bandage. I had been able to do it in the first few hours post-surgery, but after several hours of phone call distractions, I became unable to contract my lower leg muscles voluntarily. It was as if my brain was sending movement signals, but none of the muscles in my lower leg were following orders. I had read in my post-op instructions that "contracting the calf muscles frequently while awake, will help prevent deep vein leg clots," so I was concerned. After a phone chat with a doctor friend, I realized that I might need to take that bandage off and manually flex the foot. As it turned out, I was able to massage the calf muscles by stuffing my hands in at the back of the bandage, and also to manually flex the entire splint to create movement. It was very odd. I went to bed later and hoped for the best.
My experience day of procedure… I had my left cheilectomy yesterday. I was surprised that I had general anesthesia rather than a regional block. I was asleep for 45 minutes. My pain level was a 5/10 when I woke up, and they gave me IV pain medicine. After 15 minutes, it had not helped, so they gave me another dose, which brought the pain level to a 2. I have a thick dressing that looks kind of like an ace wrap around the instep area of my foot, leaving my toes and heel exposed. Before I left the outpatient surgery center, I was given a snack and a pain pill. I was told to elevate the foot and that I could bear weight on the heel. I have a special shoe that I need to wear except when lying down. I was not instructed to ice the area, so I asked and was told that I could ice the ankle area if I wanted to. My pain through the evening was mild, mostly when I walked on the heel, so I used a walker to assist. I took 1 pain pill every 4 hours to avoid a flare up. I was pleasantly surprised to have so little pain.
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