4 Weeks Post Op: To Sleep, Perchance to Dream?
It’s been four weeks since surgery. Each week gets a little better.
–Second week of driving. It’s getting easier, less tiring, with my injured foot. I’m still braking with my left foot most of the time, but by choice. I can generate enough pressure to brake fully, but my tendon doesn’t like the back and forth movement between pedals. But each day is a bit better.
–I’m grateful to be driving at this stage, but the Boot On/Boot Off/Boot On gets tiresome. I’m forced to slow down. Ain’t rushing anywhere these days. I had a scare last week when going to work in the morning. I accidentally left the recycle bin at the top of the driveway the night before, intending to push it down to the curb in the morning. I forgot. I get in the car, take off the boot, put on my “driving shoe” and pull out of the garage. I spot the bin. I stop the car and jump out to get it. I realized, “Oh, sh**! as I step on my right foot. I jump back in the car, take off the shoe, put on the boot, take the bin down to the curb, get back in the car, take off the boot, put on the “driving shoe” and leave. Whew!
–Trying to ditch the scooter at work this week. Walking in the boot is getting easier as my muscles grow back. I can actually feel a calf muscle! So I’m walking around the school most of the time. I reserve the scooter when I have to race to the bathroom between classes, lol! #teacherlife
But I did overdo it on Monday as I logged 7500 steps. I paid for it dearly on Tuesday. So, I’m pulling it back a bit and sitting more often.
–After reading some blogs, I remembered that my doctor said not to fall without the boot. He didn’t say I couldn’t stand on my foot. So I started with just putting my foot down while sitting, then tried just standing. Felt fine. I then grabbed the crutches and took a few steps. So, now I can go to the bathroom n the middle of the night without having to put the boot on to do it. I can slowly walk with my foot on the ground when using a crutch or two. The downside is that I feel more pain in my heel later, so I’m going to gradually ease into trying to walk.
–I still can’t get a good night’s sleep. My foot swells and random aches shoot through. I’m still having pain from the ankle sprain and I’m positive that I’m having some aftereffects from the nerve block. Still a bit numb in my pinkie toe and along the outside. Compression sock makes me hot and I wake up (if I fall asleep in the first place). I can’t take the hydrocodone because it builds up after a few days and makes me moody, irritable, and weepy. It’s terrible. I tried taking half a pill a couple of days this week and slept fine. But the second day at work was awful! It feels better when I use the electric cooler wrap thing, but the hose attachment wakes me up when I turn over. Tonight I’m going to try lowering the temperature and rearranging the bedding to keep myself cooler, but not too cold to sleep. It feels like when my body heats up under the covers, my foot goes into overdrive. I’m hoping this helps. I’m not sure what else to do.
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But I can do an unassisted heel lift on one foot. So, again, recovery for each of us is unique. I have moments when my foot feels totally normal. A nice change, but it doesn’t happen too often yet.
Kamueller-sorry about the sleeping challenges doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. I am guessing that Tylenol doesn’t help with the pain? Be careful not to push too hard at 4 weeks with the FWB.
Hope you get some good sleep soon!
I remember many sleep problems with my right foot! I was going crazy. Unfortunately I never slept well until I was boot free in bed. It wasn’t quite so bad with my left foot - not sure why. But with my left foot the hydrocodone was a bad thing. It stayed in my system for 5 days after I stopped taking it. Random waves of nausea - not good. One suggestion, if you haven’t already tried it, is ice and elevate before you go to bed? And take advil if you can. I still have to take that at night. Between my foot and my wrist I have 2 aches. I usually take 3 advil before bed and that knocks down the throbbing enough to sleep. Glad to hear you are doing better overall. 7500 steps! Wow that is overdoing it! Slow down, let the foot heal and be patient. Unfortunately the healing process can’t be rushed.
Last night was somewhat better. Fell asleep fine and only woke up once with a throbbing pain on my outside ankle. Nothing seemed to help it subside. The pain went away on its own.
I ice in the bed with my cooler, sleep with it elevated, tried all different combinations of Tylenol and ibuprofen, tried with the compression sock and without. Tried different types of compression socks. Benadryl. Melatonin.
The next step must be the sacrifice of a young calf, but they don’t sell those on Amazon.
The sprain will go away eventually. I just hope I don’t lose my mind before that happens.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if I’m just having hot flashes that are aggravating the swelling from the ankle sprain. When my body heats up, my foot gets worse. Hmmm…
For my right foot I periodically got stabbing pains right under the ankle. When I asked my doc about it he said it was a nerve complaining due to the fact that it got messed with during surgery. Of course I didn’t have a sprain adding to the healing woes.
Hopefully you won’t need to go in search of a calf! LOL!