Bunionectomy Day 5: Frankenfoot

Today is day 5 post op since my Bunionectomy and Osteotomy, and also my first doctor’s visit revealing my foot for the first time after surgery.

Disclaimer: This will probably be a lengthy post because I have a lot to say about today and what happened. So bear with me here.

Warning: This post contains photos of my foot just 5 days after surgery that may be graphic to some people. There is some blood, stitches, bruising and swelling, and I would suggest stopping at the last warning towards the bottom if you are not comfortable looking at surgery photos.

But just like last time, I post these photos to show the progress of my foot, and to give my readers a look at how my foot is healing, its appearance, and what to expect if they are having this surgery done. Hopefully these posts will be useful and helpful to anyone who is curious about or is having this same surgery. These are just to show you my personal experiences.

To see previous posts regarding my surgery the first time, done on my right foot, you can visit the categories section in the left column of the page and click the ‘First Procedure: Right Foot’ sub-category to view them, or CLICK HERE to be redirected in a new tab.

All bunion related posts will be categorized in the ‘All About The Bunion’ category, but also sub-categorized into whether it was the right foot or left foot, since they are different experiences.

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Let’s get on with today’s post!

This time around, this experience with my left foot has been very different from last times experience with my right. This time I do have pain. Very very intense pains that are a little hard to describe. I definitely need my pain medication this time and I’m real glad I have them.

Today started off around 4:30am with me waking up to some foot pains. I hadn’t taken any pain medication the day before because I honestly didn’t need them. The little bit of pain I had was tolerable, so that extreme dose of meds was not necessary and I was able to go through the day, fall asleep without them and not have extensive pain. But then I woke up around 4:30 with these weird and annoyingly painful foot pains that literally felt like my foot, where the incision had been made, was pulling/peeling apart and ripping open. And THAT was not a pleasant feeling. But then I was like, ‘No, that can’t happen, it’s just surgery pains. My incision isn’t ripping and pulling apart.’ But I’ll explain later that I was wrong and that indeed did happen.

I called my dad and woke him up to tell him I definitely needed my pain meds now, so my mom came in and gave one to me. And I was able to fall asleep a while after around 6am-ish.

Then I woke up later around 1pm with no real foot pain. I’m just glad that I was able to go to sleep and not feel anything, and actually have a good rest.

My doctor’s appointment was at 4:00 today so we had to leave the house around 3:30. At 3:00, I wheeled myself to the bathroom so I could get ready and look decent, so I just fixed my hair and makeup.

I should probably mention that I do have my knee walker again from last time, so no crutches for me. But even though I do have my knee walker to rest my knee on, enabling me to move freely around the house more efficiently, after being on it for just a couple minutes I start to feel really sick and exhausted. My leg and foot starts to tingle and my foot starts to ache and I have a different kind of pain in my ankle that is pretty painful. So I can’t move around too much, or at all really. Not that I try to. The most moving around I do is when I get out of bed to shuffle to the bathroom. And that takes an immense amount of energy. Seriously.

But after I fixed myself up a bit, I sat back down on my bed and elevated my foot, and my foot was leaking this half blood half something else liquid substance. It was brown like dried blood and it kind of freaked me out because I was thinking ‘Wtf is this? I’m going to the doctor today, it should be dried up and healing, not leaking fluids…’ Last time I did have blood flowing profusely out from the bandages the first day but that was because I set my foot down for a second the first time I tried to go to the bathroom. But this was the fifth day and that leaking shouldn’t be happening. So I was a little worried.

When we got to the doctor, luckily I was taken back right away. The nurse started to unwrap my bandages and dressings and oh gosh, I started crying because my foot started hurting so bad. It’s not because the nurse wasn’t careful or gentle, because she was; but my foot was just not having it. It was throbbing and then began this constant pain generating from the incision area that was just awful. She removed the splint, thank goodness, and continued to remove the bandages.

The last clean bandage was removed and the next one was covered in blood. She removed what she could and stopped when the bandage was stuck to my incision cause she didn’t want to pull anything.

Shortly after, my doctor came in and we talked for a bit. I described to her what I had been feeling the last five days and how my foot was leaking earlier and how in the morning it felt like my foot was peeling apart. After looking at my foot, she sprayed some solution on the bloody bandages that were stuck to me from a glob of blood and said that it would help to loosen it so she can easily remove it without it snagging or pulling. It came off clean, and after inspecting my foot, she told me everything looks great(:

Of course there is a lot of swelling going on, but my bone is straight. Then she continued to explain that what I was feeling about my foot peeling apart was pretty accurate. She told me because of the swelling, my foot is obviously expanding and what it’s doing is literally pulling on my stitches, causing me all that pain and causing that excess blood drip and glob in the bandages. My foot was so swollen, it actually was putting pressure on my stitches and yanking them, which she could see from looking at the top of my stitches.

She put an antibiotic cream over my incision and put new dressings on it, and put me into a walking boot. I was very relieved to be in a walking boot rather than that splint because my foot couldn’t breathe in it. It’s just great to have that option of taking the boot off for a bit and letting my foot breathe than having to have it on all day.

My ankle is also very swollen and it hurts just as much as my foot. Turning my foot to the side when I have to get out of bed to pee is painful because of it.

At the doctor’s, we also talked about how different this experience has been so far compared to the last one, as far as pain goes. I explained that last time she had given me a numbing block after surgery and that literally lasted me like two days and was a big help and played the main role as to why I wasn’t having any pain; and how this time when I went home from surgery, I was able to FEEL my foot. It wasn’t numb at all like last time. Before I left the hospital, the nurse pressed down on my toe and I could feel everything, like it wasn’t even numb at all. Which ultimately contributed to me feeling the pain. I wasn’t supposed to feel that pain because my foot was supposed to still be numb like last time, but that wasn’t the case. My doctor was a little startled that the same day of my surgery when I went home, I was able to feel my foot and move my toes.

She told me that last time for my right foot, she had personally injected my foot with the numbing block, and this time she had the nurse do it because she was stitching me up. The nurse obviously missed her mark or didn’t do it right because I went home being able to feel it completely.

But overall, everything went well with my foot, it looks good, and all should heal fine in time.

And now for photos!(:

Warning: If you don’t like seeing surgery photos, I would suggest you stop reading here. The photos are of my foot, with some bloody bandages, and then of my swollen foot and toes, my incision and stitches.

I personally don’t think these photos are too bad, but out of respect for others, I wanted to put warnings letting them know what these photos are.

This is just a photo of the nurse beginning to take off my dressings. You can see at the top of the dressings some blood is coming through.

Front view of my foot with the bandage stuck on it from the blood. But you can see that the first metatarsal is very straight(:

Side view with the bandages still on.

Close up of ugly bloody toes and the glob of blood that was gluing that bandage to me. You can also see on my big toe where the blood was leaking and dripping down.

Here’s my Frankenfoot after the bandage was removed. You can see all the swelling and bruising going on on my foot and under my second and third toes. Look at those meaty sausage toes! My stitches are blue and you can’t really see it, but at the top is where it was swelling and pulling those stitches and ripped the skin just a little causing it to bleed. You can also see how swollen my ankle is 😦

Wow, that second toe is really fat. Lol

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Well that’s it for today’s update. I will continue to update you on my foot as time passes. I believe my next doctor visit is in 13 days, so February 4th, I believe. And that’s when I’ll be getting my first set of xrays done and having my stitches removed. I’m excited to see the progress of my foot within those days. I just hope that the pain will die down and won’t be too much for me where I need to take the pain meds. I hate those and how they make me feel.

I will stay in my bed, limit my mobility to just going to the bathroom, and keep icing my foot so that the swelling will go down in both my foot and my ankle.

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a great night, everyone(: