Surgery day!!!!

Today was the day. I finally had my surgery. I'm at home recovering now, and, so far, so good. The surgery only took about an hour and fifteen minutes. I was very nervous initially. So nervous that I had to be given medicine to relax me while I was in pre-op. My palms were sweating and my stomach was in knots. I'm not sure if I was nervous with anticipation or if it was sheer anxiety. The nurses were very calming and relaxing and reassured me that everything would be okay. I'm petrified of needles (yet I decided to get surgery? I know right?!) So when it was time for the IV my heart rate started to speed up and the nurse knew I was scared because the heart rate monitor was beeping out of control. She was nice enough to give me a numbing medicine in my vein so that I wouldn't feel the IV going in. If anyone plans on getting an IV anytime in the future I would highly suggest asking for the numbing medicine.

So, here I am. Sitting, well, laying really, on the couch with my feet propped up. I can see the tips of my toes peering out of the bandages, but I can't see anything else. All I know is that my toes are straight!! :-D I finally have straight toes. They are straight and even and when I walk in the sand my foot print will look more like a humans' and less like a sloth footed animal. The pain isn't too bad. On a scale of one to ten I would say it is a 6. My toes are still fairly numb and I have taken a vicodin as suggested. The only time I really feel pain is when I have to walk to the bathroom. I am icing my feet for ten minutes every half hour, which helps with the swelling. My left pinky toe is the only one that has regained most of the feeling and boy oh boy, it's nothing nice. It feels like someone took a sludge hammer or an anvil and flattened the bone into dust. Ouch!

But, hey, pain is beauty and beauty isn't painless. :-) I can tell you what isn't beauty, and that is these hideous surgical shoes that I have to wear. First off, they don't come in a left and a right. Just two oddly shaped shoes with no distinctive curvature or anything to distinguish one foot from the other. Oh, and they velcro. Great. The only thing that would make it worse is if they were white and and had glitter on them. When my mom had her toe surgery fifteen or so years ago her surgical shoes were white. :-} lol. I have a video of her at my birthday party at a skating rink and she was hobbling around with those hideous white shoes on. Looking back on it, it was pretty funny, sweet, but funny. If I find the video I will try to post it. :) I have been taking pictures and am still undecided if I'm brave enough to post the before pictures of my toes. Maybe once I see the results I will post the pictures. Here are some pics of my feet post-op. My toenails look yellow because of the iodine or whatever that they put on my feet. I don't have jaundice.