Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Double Proximal Metatarsal Osteotomy (AKA Bunion Surgery)

So you're contemplating bunion surgery. I'm psychic, I know. I had a double bunionectomy on December 17, 2013. I was 26 years old and my savior of a mother took care of me during my recovery (THANK YOU, MOM!). I had a wheelchair for four weeks, crutches for two weeks after that, and have been walking slowly since then. I'm getting better and better with each week and actually ran on the treadmill in April 2014!

I had a hard time finding recent and relevant information during my pre-surgery research. I felt like people only posted their horror stories so I've decided to pay it forward and share my story (you're welcome?). PS it is so sexy to talk about feet to everyone so if you follow through with the surgery... get used to it or come up with a good fake story!

How did I get my bunions? I was born with them. They weren't too painful until about a year before the surgery.

Why both feet? I'm terrible blood/stitches/gross stuff. I got light headed when I researched the surgery and ended up glimpsing part of a surgery video (bad idea). Plus, who wants to go through this twice? No thank you.

My orthopedic surgeon recommended getting a Proximal Metatarsal Osteotomy, since it's a long term fix. It involves breaking the first metatarsal about 75%, probably a little shaving of the bunions, and then inserting a plate and some pins to put everything into place. The pins/plates don't come out and thankfully don't set off any metal detectors.

PICTURES

Before surgery (and right before I took the nail polish off)


A few hours after surgery (it's outpatient)

The sexy boots you get to wear (rawr)

Field trip for the feetsies!


My feet got cold - socks were too tight but somewhat matching beanies were just right. And beer always helps.

I wore a lot of maxi skirts... try getting those boots through pants! Note that the green bandages came off. That happened after two weeks - they cut off the bandages to remove the stitches and then it was braces/boots only (so weird).

You can see how swollen my feet were!! Like I said, sexy ;)

I'm wearing sweatpants - win! This was also when I really started to notice a difference in the shape of my feet.


X-ray time - yippee! I tried to get a copy of the pre-surgery x-rays but no such luck. Here are the x-rays at four weeks mark to verify that my bones were healed enough to start walking.





My first steps, 26 years later.



No comments:

Post a Comment