Be Prepared to Lose your Foot

Since becoming sick I can only compare the experience to being on an old fashion railroad mail truck, you know, the kind from the cartoons with the two characters pumping a metal bar back and forth.  I feel like I am riding the rails unprotected.  I figure at some point my number will be up and I will meet a 40 car cargo train going the other way in a clandestine meeting which I will not win. 

This last experience, which I am still going through, feels like a very close call.  I guess the track was switched in time because I was paying attention, but it could have resulted in a pretty ugly affair.

It actually started when my left foot started to bother me.  It was slight.  I thought I caused the problem.  When I sit at the computer my foot does not like to be on the floor pad down, so I bent it and kind of rubbed it against the hardwood floor, so I thought I had irritated it.  I asked my mother if there was a mark where the pain was coming from and she said, "What do you mean that scab that has been there for 9 months?"  So since it had been there for so long I didn't worry about it because I have been going to the Dr.

The problem is where the spot is.  It is on my left foot on the outside arch meaning that I can not see it.  I can not see if it changes or what the spot looks like.

Well, I fell down in the back yard trying to get into the car.  It was stupid.  My mother parked a bit close to the wall and I was trying to see if I could fit in between.  I was so concerned with this that I forgot about the canopy pole drilled into the ground to help protect the cars.  Luckily I think, I fell onto the car hood first and then the ground, so it was a softer fall.  Unfortunatly the pole had twisted my right leg.  I was bed bound for 3 days, barely being able to get to the bathroom.  During this time the pain from my right leg over shadowed anything that was happening with my left.  Finally, I felt well enough to take care of myself and my parents went off to a concert and left me alone.  That night the pain in my left foot became unbearable.  It was so bad I couldn't get myself any food. 

The next morning I told my mother of the pain.  She looked at the spot again and this time I could hear the concern in her voice.  I  called for an appointment with my Doctor, but he couldn't see me until Tuesday a full 5 days later.  My mother said it looked red and infected.  She was worried that Tuesday was too long.  I real did not want to go to the ER.  It is so hard in there and I would only do it as a last resort.  You see I still wasn't worried.  I could not see it and the pain wasn't quite unbearable.  Mom had the best idea then.  I am really grateful because her idea got me the help I needed.  She told me to call my Doctors nurse.  I have her direct number and my mother left a message telling her about the spot.  The nurse called back saying they thought the spot was infected.  She referred me to a surgeon and even set up an appointment for the next day.

Where the sore is on my foot.  Right in a spot I can't see.

I hadn't eaten for too long and I asked my mother for some oatmeal.  Then we attempted to get to the car.  The pain in my foot was excruciating.  It had grown each day and now it felt as if every time I put my foot down I stepped on an extra sharp, extra vicious Lego.  My foot would automatically jerk back up.  It wasn't too bad to the car because the grass is soft.

We endure the process of getting to the Doctor.  I asked for a wheelchair because I knew I could not walk.  The surgeon took one look at the sore and said, "We need to do surgery right away.  Be prepared to lose your foot."

My jaw dropped.  What?!  What?!

My mom went running out of the room trying to call anyone for help.  It turned out that most of our friends were helping another friend move at the same time.  I told her not to worry.  We had plenty of time because I had eaten the oatmeal they had to delay the surgery until the next day which just so happen to be Saturday.

I was checked into the hospital and went through that process.  The IV is a nightmare on me.  My veins roll away from them.  It is the worst because they see the vein.  It taunts them, big and ready to be poked.  Then it moves on them and they dig the needle in trying to catch it only to miss, remove it and then have to do it again.  Over 30 minutes of this torture and the nurse finale gets into my index finger.  It felt like liquid fire every time they used it.  I hated it of course. 

The surgery was bearable.  Because it was Saturday I got the people who wanted to be there.  There was no recovery room or other people there, just me.  The anesthesiologist did an amazing job.  That was the first time I woke from surgery an did not feel sick to my stomach or like I was paralyzed.  The surgeon saved my foot and took out a 2.5 centimeter section of my foot.  He actually told me that they did not know why that part of my body died.  I asked if there was anything I could do to prevent it and he said no.  The problem is having high blood sugars.  That makes it difficult for the body to heal and the feet are the first to go.  I was only in the hospital for 4 days.  I was begging him, crying to be kept in there a little longer, but they get you out as soon as you reach the requirements.  I just knew my house could not handle me.  The walk from the car to the door is unbearable and I was forced to use a walker.  I hit my foot on the step coming in and I almost fainted from the pain.

      

The long walk I have to take to get to the car.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
They got me on a schedule in the hospital and I have tried my best to keep it.  I am eating 3 meals a day at a regular time, taking my insulin and doing every thing the professionals are telling me to do and it still isn't working.  My sugars are lower, but still not under what they would call "controlled". It frustrates me to no end because I want to do what's right.  I want to do what will help me.

I have a home nurse coming to help with the wound every other day.  She puts on a new bandage and checks my progress.  The Doctor did not like how slow the healing process was on me so he ordered a "Wound Whack".  I was freaking out because all he said when I asked for clarification was, "Oh, you will know it when you get it."  It sounded very ominous to me, so for two days I am thinking the nurse is going to come to the house with some medieval looking tool with spikes on I and have to "whack the wound" to get it to start healing again.  I was nervous and just a little bit scared.  Finally the nurse comes over and we ask her if she brought the "Wound Whack".  The poor nurse just stared at us very confused by what we were asking.  Then it hit her and she started laughing.  My Doctor has a very thick accent and when I thought he had said wound whack, he had actually said wound vac. 

We were all laughing to tears.  My nurse said she comes over to our house for comic relief.

She then started to describe the small pump that would be attached to my wound and help it heal.  It sounded horrible and I was willing to have the wound whack after hearing about being attached to a machine 24 hours a day.  It helps to keep the liquid off of it and through negative pressure get the would to heal from the inside out.

I was getting ready for that process when trouble started very fast.  The nurse arrived on Weds. changed my bandage with everything looking good.  I woke up on Thursday with a sharper pain in my foot then normal so I took a pain pill.  The nurse looked at my wound on Friday and freaked.  She thought it was infected again.

Noooooooooooo!!!!  The nurse got me antibiotics that night and said if I had any bad symptoms to go to the ER because we were facing the weekend.  I actually felt better on the medicine and thought that everything would be OK when I meet with the Doctor on Monday.

That thought proved to be wrong.  The Doctor took one look and I found myself in a wheelchair with the Doctor pushing me to the hospital and admitting me 10 days before Christmas.

And so I will write of the continuing story.