Part 5 of my “journal” related to my Lisfranc injury to my left foot. While I started making journal entries about a week ago, this is the point at which I made the decision to post my thoughts and experiences here at Knuckleballs. The early parts were put together from my memories of the early days of this adventure.
January 15, 2020
Not quite four weeks post-op and one week away from my next post-op appointment.
Things are still going pretty well. Was mentioning to my wife this week that I feel like I’ve been really fortunate with regard to the pain issue. I said it felt like I really haven’t had much at all.
She said she thought maybe I was choosing to ignore some points at which I was feeling it. She’s right, of course.
I’d forgotten how intense the pain could get those first couple of weeks whenever I first lowered my foot from being elevated. It would be just intense pain, I suppose as blood rushed to my lowered extremities. It never lasted more than a few seconds, but those few seconds were incredibly painful.
I can still feel some initial soreness when I lower my foot and it certainly feels better when it’s elevated above my heart (even better with ice on it), but I no longer have that searing pain.
The foot is still swollen and discolored. I’m not concerned about the color, but the swelling concerns me a little. I’m not really sure whether this is normal or not. Hoping it is.
The area just below my toes, in particular, seem to swell up any time I go for any time with my foot not elevated. It was particularly swollen when I got out of bed this morning.
For something like three weeks after the injury, I was sleeping in my recliner, so the foot was elevated all night. Since I’ve been going back to sleeping in bed, though, it’s harder for me to sleep with it elevated. I sleep best on my sides and there’s just no comfortable way to keep it elevated sleeping that way… or at least I haven’t found one.
As a result, I tend to wake up in the morning with my foot laying flat, as normal, on the bed. And it’s sore & swollen until I get out to the recliner, get it up in the air and get an ice pack on it.
Whenever I have symptoms that I’m not sure of, I tend to refer back to the lady’s blog that gave me the idea to write this journal, myself. Sure enough, she wrote at her 4-week point that she was still having swelling when her foot wasn’t elevated for any length of time. For better or worse, that kind of reinforcement from a stranger whose name I don’t even know makes me feel better.
Oh! I finally took a shower yesterday! This probably falls in the “Too Much Information” category, but I hadn’t been able to shower since the injury.
No, I didn’t just let myself get disgustingly filthy during that time. I used the “Full Body Wipes” along with the good old fashioned “sponge bath” process (and washing my hair in the kitchen sink) to keep from being completely offensive. But I was ready to get in the shower.
Having clearance from the surgeon to get the foot wet was the first step, but then you have to figure out how to actually get into the shower, stay there for long enough to wash up, and get out of the shower… all without putting any weight on your injured foot. Try doing all of that on just one foot sometime. It ain’t easy, folks.
Enter the shower seat.
It’s still a little cumbersome getting in and out and sitting while you’re showering is not ideal. But using it makes showering doable at this point and that feels great, not only physically but psychologically. I can’t begin to explain how every little bit of progress toward normalcy helps me from a mental standpoint.
Overall, I’m feeling pretty good. But hey, the Twins signed All-Star free agent third-baseman Josh Donaldson last night! How could I NOT feel good today?!