Every week, people find my blog by searching about foot injuries. Either sticking your foot in a bucket of ice, recovery after a cast, or how you know it’s broke. I’ve had a few people email me to say the same thing happened to them or that recover was hard. I’m two years out, and have put a lot of it behind me. And by it, I mean the feelings that came with the injury and recovery. The pain, the surgery, the boredom, the depression, and the recovery. I see these messages and feel sympathy for those experiencing it now, but I don’t go back there. I suppose I learned a few things from my six weeks on bed rest. I learned how quickly life can change. Literally in an instant. I learned about relying on others. It’s a very hard thing! I’m fortunate in that I only experienced a broken foot. It could have been worse. A lot worse. It was also an interesting experience in that I didn’t see any good coming out of the pain. It wasn’t like my c-section recovery. I had a goal for that, I had a baby I was feeding and taking care of. With my foot, I only felt sorry for myself. I wanted the pain to be gone now and it was awful. I said it was worse than my c-section recovery. And my first was one pretty bad. Maybe it was just as much mental as painful. With my foot, it was just this awful thing that had happened to me with an awful surgery and an awful recovery. Nothing happy or exciting about any of it.
Two years later, I have two small screws in my right foot. I can run. I can play volleyball and jump {not that I could ever really jump}. I can sit on the floor. But, I can’t sit cross-legged with my right foot touching the floor. Over the past two months, I’ve been able to put less pressure on the side of my foot. I can’t lay on my right side and put my foot against the bed. I have to sleep in a contorted way so my foot is rested on the left and is supported. It started slow. My foot started hurting when I was wearing a pair of boots. I could handle most of the day, but after about eight hours it got to be too much. I switched to heels and eventually couldn’t wear them because they put a lot of pressure on the side of my foot. I can push through the pain of shoes and eventually it wears off. But, it usually comes back after a few hours. I can’t take my tennis shoes off without unlacing them. If they rub against my foot, it causes me lots of pain for quite a while.
I’m in a weird spot right now. I can walk and run and do normal activities, so nothing appears to be really wrong. However, it is causing me a lot of pain. I’ve always had a big calcium buildup on the side of my foot and that’s what rubs or causes me not to put pressure on it. But, at one time I could put pressure on it. So something has happened. Someone mentioned that one of my screws may have come out. I don’t usually go to the doctor, so I’m having a hard time making myself go in for something that might be wrong. Unless I can’t walk, it’s not obvious enough.
So that’s how my recovery is going. Two years later it has started bothering me again. Maybe something is wrong. Or, maybe there’s nothing wrong and this will just be something I deal with for the rest of my life.
