Surgery

It's been about 15 years that I've been walking around with constant pain in my right foot. Every day. Every single step, a sharp pain in the joint where my big toe meets my foot. I've always been a grin and bare it person, always assumed that the pain was just from being on my feet too long, always recognized the fact that there are a lot of people in the world with worse pain so who was I to complain. This past year I finally decided to get it looked at, to get myself whole inside and out. Come to find out I have a rare curvature in the big toe joints of both feet, which always leads to arthritis, and which I have. But the kicker is on my right foot I also had a bone spur (picture a sharp horn shaped bone) sticking out at the top of that joint and causing extra pain as it poked the corresponding bone that was required of bending my foot--thus the sharpness with each step and the reduced range of motion I had there. The cortisone shots we tried hardly lasted and so I decided to get the surgery done to remove that troublesome spur. After all these years I was so excited to finally be pain free and so I looked forward to surgery like it was some vacation. How could I not imagine that until the thing is healed there'd be a lot of pain and throbbing and difficulty getting around on crutches while taking care of two kids and a dog? Alone for the most part? (My mother and my neighbors helped out a great deal yesterday). The doc told me I'd be able to start running at least on the elliptical machine in a few weeks, so surely that means healing time won't be too bad, but for now it's a real show stopper as I try to figure out how to cart my kids to school and meet all of their needs when I can scarcely meet mine--and I realized last night that I can't even pick up my daughter and place her in her crib. I also realized last night that it's not a good idea to walk on crutches in the dark when you can't sleep because when the bottom of one crutch accidentally came down on the exact point of my stitches I just wanted to collapse! Still, I have a high tolerance for pain, good friends and family, and only improvement to look forward to...

 Just home from surgery, with a son that did not like seeing me hurt. He's been even more thoughtful and loving than usual.

 My new view for a while. I hate sitting still.

And my adorable bed side nurse who pulled up a chair next to me and kept offering me water and kissing my forehead. She was worried they were going to cut off my whole leg, and she told me she didn't want anyone cutting out her brain.