Well there is not much I can remember after surgery. The last thing I remembered before going into lala land was telling my doctors to "take care of Crankle", in which everyone in the OR looked at me wondering why I was calling my ankle such a silly name. I of course told them how I came to name my 7 month old injury Crankle and my doctor as well as all the nurses were laughing hysterically and then it all fades to black.
I woke up to very little pain and a very empty recovery room. I think my surgery started around 1:30pm and was just over 3 hours long. I didn't wake up until about 5pm and my family was allowed back to see me around 7pm. My doctor came by a few time after surgery and explained how things went. Basically my AFL (anterior talofibular ligament) was not partially torn, but was actually according to him "shredded" and completely torn. Also, my CFL ( Calcaneofibular Ligament) was also torn and he repaired both. He also had to perform an Arthroscopic Fibular Chondroplasty because some of my cartilage had chipped away from the bone and needed to be shaved down treated by drilling holes into the bone to promote cartilage growth. Fun stuff! Other than that I can remember what else he said and my mom and hubby both say different things so I guess I will have to wait until my follow-up appointment to get more info. All in all it did go well.
Now, back to the pain. Well, as I mentioned previously they did a nerve block on me which basically numbs the entire leg throughout surgery and for up to 12 hours after surgery. The only grey area is timing the start of your meds to kick in just as the nerve block wears off. I was warned this was extremely difficult to do and their suggestion was to just start taking them now to prevent the chance of missing that window. Well damn, how bad could really be. I was felling great so far, man this nerve block is misleading...but i loved it and would highly recommend it to anyone getting a similar surgery.
I was discharged from the hospital by 8pm and was instructed to go straight to a pharmacy to get the meds I needed and since most pharmacies didn't have the drug I needed (then why did they prescribe it to me) then I should go to this one. Whatever, I was doped up and ready for whatever. They put me into the back seat of my car and we were on our way.
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| After surgery waiting in my car for the prescription to be ready. |
It took about 45 minutes to get my prescription filled which was a lot, but I survived and managed to get home, up the stairs to my bed within no time.
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| My office for the next 6 weeks |
It was about 4am that next morning when my nerve block wore off. It's a weird feeling actually, I remember feeling a burning sensation in my toes and around my heal. It kinda felt like I had just gotten road burn on my toes and heal, you know that burning feeling after road burn...yup it was just like that. I could only assume this was my nerve block wearing off. Which means my nerve was turning back on. So, I attempted to wiggle my toes and sure enough they moved which they hadn't done since I was injected with this stuff so yeah time to take some meds. Luckily I had already started my medicine regime and had a little something in me by the time the nerve block wore off because the pain got worse and I can only assume it would have been a lot more worse if I hadn't had a little something something already in my system. I remember the nurse telling me that the next day would be my most painful day and so far, she was right. I spent most of the day in terrible pain (12 out of 10), it was like a Mack truck ran over my ankle. The meds did help, but they didn't do enough to stop the pain. It was just hardcore and I just had to deal with it.
I spent most of the day in the bed with my leg elevated and kept it iced just about all day as well. It was indeed a long painful day and its a good thing I spent most of the day sleeping. I could only hope the next day would be better. Cause the pain has to get better right?
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