Undefeeted
So remember back in January when I posted that we’d hopefully never have to talk about my feet again on this-here blog? Wrong.
Went to the doctor yesterday because the “strained tendons” he said would heal themselves in 2-4 weeks had still not healed, close to 10 weeks later. I still can’t stand for long periods of time, if I step on an uneven surface I am in agony, and I get stabbing pains if I try to pivot on that foot. And now, due to adventures with Wii Fit, my left knee had gone all to hell as well, probably from favoring that leg due to the foot pain. So I wanted him to check it out. He poked and prodded, had me stretch and watched me walk, and decided that it was still my tendons, and he was going to send me to physical therapy. He wanted to do some x-rays of my knee, which he said was swollen, to make sure I wasn’t developing arthritis in it. I said that was fine, and that I really needed my foot to start feeling better pretty much right now. I told him that I was surprised it was really the tendons, since the pain was so sharp and wouldn’t go away, and I had been trying to stretch the foot and use it as much as possible. So, probably just to humor me, he decided that as long as I was having x-rays he’d “grab one of the foot, too.”
Some mixups and snafus in radiology and an hour later, I am back in his office. He comes in and tells me he’s “really glad we got a picture of the foot.” Which I knew was not a good sign. Turns out that my foot had actually rebroken back in December, and that it just wasn’t visible in the x-rays back then because it had broken right through the site of the original break, where the bone was more dense. He showed me the pictures right next to each other, and I have to admit that I couldn’t see a break in the January pictures either. But then again, I am not a trained orthopedist. Anyway. This is why my foot never stopped hurting, I have been walking unsupported, uncasted on a broken bone. Yay me, I am fucking hard-ass. “The good news,” he tells me “is that it’s healing really well on its own.” Awesome.
Of course that particular bone in my foot is now about 32″ wide, since it’s re-forming new bone over the other already reformed new bone of the other break. So the chances of my being ever able to wear a narrow shoe again are pretty much nil. And at this point there’s nothing to be done. See, at 10 weeks out, this is just about when he’d be taking me out of the boot/cast whatever they would have put me in if they knew the foot was broken back then. So there’s no point taking corrective action now. His only mandates are that I have to give up Wii Fit for now, can’t do any excessive exercise or walking, should not do lots of stairs (ha!) and I need to come back and see him in a month and we will re-evaluate how everything’s going.
I don’t know how I feel about all of this, honestly. Most of me feels extremely glad that I didn’t know it was broken. Mentally I don’t think I would have dealt well with it. I was so overjoyed when he told me it wasn’t broken – I think the news that I was going to spend another winter in a boot might have really broken my brain and sent me into a major depressive cycle. So in a way it’s much better that I didn’t know. Also, since my calf muscle wasn’t allowed to atrophy, I am less likely to need PT this time around. Also, 10 weeks out is really good, timing-wise. This is when things started to improve last time, so I can look forward to feeling a lot better in a month or so. And it’s also good to know that I am not just a huge pussy, and that there is a reason that the pain wouldn’t go away. Those are all good things. So as weird as this whole situation is, I think it turned out for the best. As long as it continues to heal well and there are no long-term consequences to how I treated it while I didn’t know it was broken, that is. Because in retrospect all the things I was doing to “stretch my tendons” were exactly the wrong thing for a broken bone. (Constantly flexing that foot, putting more pressure on it, standing on my tiptoes all the time to stretch out that joint, etc.) But, we shall see. Just glad to have a diagnosis and further confirmation that I am not entirely crazy. And another reminder for me that no matter what the doctor says, go with what your gut tells you, and question everything.
Filed under: brokenFootDrama, Health Stuff | Comments (2)2 Responses to “Undefeeted”
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Glad to hear that it’s healing finally, but I’m not at all surprised that the doctor failed to diagnose last time. I wonder sometimes whether doctors actually attend college and medical school these days, or if they just do a couple of years of work experience until the feel they’ve “got it”
And the fact that you were right just goes to confirm Heidi’s theory – as part of a small percentage of the human race, we are like the spartans in the film “300″ – it’s the rest of them that are insane and we’re just trying to hold the line.