To fuse or not to fuse?

Those of you who know me will NOT be surprised to hear that I am NOT an athlete.

And you will also be surprised that when I first went to a doctor about pain in my right foot about 6 years ago, they said it was just arthritis and that it sometimes happens when you reach a “certain age”. I guess that certain age is 45! After an ultrasound on my ankle, the technician said, “You have obviously played WAY too much soccer on this ankle”. NOT!

The crazy thing is that there was never any trauma to my ankle. I never had a substantial fall – although I had lots of trips and slips. There were certainly no bona fide sports injuries. There were, however, torn ligaments that went undetected for two years – we still don’t know how or why but it doesn’t matter.

This is what my ankle looked like when medical doctors considered it “normal”:

There was constant pain, obviously a lot of swelling and it completely affected my quality of life. I could barely even go for a walk. I could NOT accept that it was normal.

I pushed and pushed until my MD finally agreed to send me to an orthopedic surgeon who agreed that he should go in laparoscopically and clean up around the ankle joint.

He never really said exactly what was wrong but I was happy to have him try to do SOMETHING.

It was just a quick day surgery. When I woke up, my foot was very tightly wrapped in a Tensor bandage and he told me I should likely take it off when I got home as the swelling started.

We got in the truck and started our ride home from Kitchener and my calf started swelling over the top of my bandaid, so I took it off in the car.

It looked a lot like ET.

Sadly, this surgery made no difference at all. The original swelling all came back and my leg and ankle looked like they could, at any time, be offered a guest spot on My 600-lb Life.

In my doctor’s mind, this just made her even more sure that what was going on was “normal”. Thank God I had a knowledgeable, CARING Registered Massage Therapist and Physiotherapist. They guided me and told me what I needed to ask for (read DEMAND) in order to, hopefully, get some relief.

Eventually, I met with a different orthopedic surgeon in Georgetown. He agreed that I needed an ankle fusion and offered to do it two weeks later! Wow!

In retrospect, I would NOT do an ankle fusion again. It is not a great answer and you never walk “normally” again because you lose some of the swelling but also a lot of the flexibility and range of motion in your ankle.

This was my foot six weeks after surgery. I was a little nervous because it did not look a lot better! But the surgeon, at this appointment and subsequent appointments, was happy with the progress. Until this day, he would tell you that the surgery was a complete success. He was happy that the bones fused and grew together and that remained his sole concern. He did not seem bothered that I could not walk normally or flex my foot at all – forget about run or jump or bend my ankle in yoga class.

My PT and RMT disagreed with the surgeon that it was a great success, as did I.

The swelling is usually under control.

The pain is still there.

I cannot flex my foot because it is fused – with SCREWS – at a 90 degree angle. I will never have the same range of motion I had before.

Barefoot? NO WAY!

Flat shoes or cheapie flip flops. NOT A CHANCE.

I need to always have shoes with a wedge in the sole to help me to take a proper step and have a somewhat normal gait.

Lesson learned? Not sure. I am actually not sure if I am the one who needs to learn a lesson or the medical doctors that I was dealing with!