It was back to the doctor's office today to have my cast removed and the foot evaluated. There was a slight chance that I might not be returning home with a new cast, enough so that I dropped the other shoe and brought it with me to the appointment.
Hope springs eternal.
Now knowing what to expect when a cast comes off one's leg, I was less apprehensive about the saw as Dr. Knee drew three lines with it and pried the fiberglass off my leg. I was not expecting to see the gauze underneath bloody and sticky or the large gap between the two sides of the incision on the top of my foot or the way my foot looked bloated and inflamed. Though I couldn't see the other incision on my heel, it also had a gap large enough that when Dr. Knee swabbed it to get a culture I was able to see the cotton head of the Q-Tip completely disappear into it.
This was not going the way I had hoped.
Nevertheless, Dr. Knee was very pleased. The problems with the incisions didn't bother her (well it's not her foot), nothing that a regimen of antibiotics couldn't take care of and she was happy to see that, though bloated, my foot was closer to being in the proper alignment with the rest of my leg. She was so much encouraged that she asked me to stand up on my own. I looked at her askance. Really? Put weight on this foot that hasn't had any on it in over a month? While it looks like something Frankenstein might say "whoa, go find another one will ya?"?
"Come on, give it a shot", she goaded me.
Tentatively I came off the exam table. Balance was definitely going to be a problem, so I grabbed hold of the counter. Slowly I put my leg down. Inch by inch, afraid of pain and set back but egged on by needing to know how far I had come, till finally my foot found the floor. I allowed my center of gravity to shift from favoring the right side to being more balanced. I peered downwards. My foot was flat on the floor. I can't remember the last time it was like that.
Ten seconds was about all I could take, but it was what Dr. Knee was looking for. I hopped back up on the table where she wrapped an ace bandage around and sent me off for x-rays. The pictures showed that the bones were healing well, but not final, so a new cast was put on. The add on though was a black boot so that I will be able to accede to the instructions that I stand upright three times a day for ten minutes in each session. No walking, just standing.
As the old professor said, you gotta stand before you can walk.
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