Day 6 after Surgery

Excited to see the Surgeon Dr Vickars today.  Hoping for  a removable cast.  Expecting a solid cast.  Time will tell.

Hope I get the Ok to drive, fortunately one of our cars is an automatic should be ok to drive with my left in a cast.  Sad I dont get to drive the new car for a few months.


Some concern since surgery I need to use the bathroom often at night (4 to 5 times)  The meds should be out of my system right now so I need to look into this.

Well just made it to the Appt.

Dr had to remove 8mm of cartilage.    Apparently not to bad they transplant carilage when it gets over 2cm.  After messing with the cartilage they drill a hole in the bone so it will bleed a bit and put in a fibrous replacement for the what was removed.   {any messing up of terms is entirely my fault Dr Vickars was very clear.}

Aparently I basically had no tendons left on my ankle, now I know why stepping down would cause it to pop.  Also my donor tendons were very Beefy (exact quote) so there will be no problem there.

From what I know now I wish I had done it long ago then I would only be down for 1 week (nwb).  Oh well.   He also mentioned they X rayed both ankles and my right is pretty much in the same boat but he advised worry about one ankle at a time.  The other one works now.

People that have "joint Laxity" will have these problems eventually.  I was wondering what I could do for my boys.  He recommended lace up braces when doing high risk activities.  Apparently studies have shown they do not make your ankle weak or injure the knee.  Strengthening activities do not really help.  His opinion is that it is always good to have strong ankles but the muscles do not have time to react when an accident occurs.  Main thing is to not get into the cycle of sprains that I have been in.

For the next 4 weeks I have to be very careful of my ankle if  the ball of my foot drops more than 30 degrees from 90 it will rip out the replacement tendon and all but the cartilage must be done over again.  Yikes,  I might ask for a hard cast tomorrow, washing will be stressful, no pressure.

From now on it should only improve.  At 4 weeks he will start doing joint movement excercises and at 6 weeks I can start putting small amounts of weight on it.  Shortly after I will start PT and be in a lace up brace like I have been wearing in TKD.

I am paranoid about it slipping so I keep adjusting the boot to tight and putting my foot to sleep.

After Angie took me out to dinner.