Too Many Cooks?

Greetings.  I have not had surgery yet, nor have I scheduled one. After enough pestering from my mother, I scheduled an appointment with a bone and joint specialist in early August. After scrambling to get my medical records for him, I met with Dr. Kaz of the Illinois Bone and Joint Institute here in Chicago with 48 pages of medical gibberish. 48 pages. For one year of treatment. That didn't even include any physical therapy notes. Anyway, he was a very nice guy. I had some x-rays taken. When I say "some," I mean like 20. While I was standing on JUST my bad foot. It was an awful experience, but he needed to see what the heck was going on down there.

What he noticed was more bone spur formation on my tibia and fibula that was probably causing my ankle to not get proper dorsi/plantar-flexion. He suggested that instead of a total ankle replacement, an ankle fusion. He wanted to cut my ankle open, shave down the bone spurs, and fuse the ankle closed. He said that later in life, I can choose to have it "taken down" and replace it at that point. Sounds pretty fucking awful, right? Ugh. 

He also suggested a cortisone shot for the pain. Now, I have been kind of avoiding a cortisone shot for the last year. I have heard several horror stories about the pain involved in getting the shot, and that sometimes it doesn't even work. Dr. Kaz left me in the room for a few minutes while I calmed myself down, as I was having a full blown panic attack. Vanna + Needles don't mix. After about 15 minutes, I finally agreed to it. He had his assistant come in and set up. I politely told him that I don't do well with needles or pain, and that I may shout several expletives while being injected. He gave me a tissue to cover my mouth. It was over in less than a minute, and that's the only good thing I will say about it. I was in more pain for that minute than I was post fixator removal. It was like fire, acid, and 100 bees were being injected straight into my joint. 

Pre-injection, post-injection, and me wearing cute girly shoes!

It's been about 4 weeks since the cortisone shot. I am kind of pain free, but not enough to walk on my own. Bummer, right?

I have an upcoming appointment with a third (and final) opinion at the end of the week. His name is Dr. Senall. My neighbor by my mom's house had foot surgery a few weeks ago, and had been talking with him casually about my situation. He told her to have me make an appointment to see him. Since the first two doctor's had given conflicting advice, I figured one more would break the tie. I had to scramble (again) for my medical records, this time including all radiology images. Since I lost my MRI CD, I had pay for all those images to be sent as well. Unfortunately, I had to send my mom to pick up the MRI/X-ray CD and drop them off at Dr. Senall's office since it was so far out of my way. As soon as I have that bad boy in my hands, I will get a nice photo update of all my x-rays. 

Hopefully all of this won't be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. I really need to figure out what to do with my foot before I take a knife and cut it off. 

Outside of my foot nonsense, life is pretty good. Aaron and I celebrated his birthday with a fantastic dinner at RPM Italian, and then gambled our night away at Blue Chip Casino in Indiana. The next day we hit up the dunes on the way home. 

I am bummed that the summer is getting close to being over. I mean, if I am going to be home all day doing nothing, at least I can do it by the pool. Once the summer is over though, I'll be banished to the couch again. I will say that I have done a lot of reading so far. I have read the Crossfire Series by Silvia Day (Bared to You, Reflected in You, and Entwined with You), Divergent and Insurgent both by  Veronica Roth (looking forward to the Divergent movie in March 2014!), Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman (the book the show was very loosely based off of), and I have just started reading Rush by Maya Banks. It's the first book in the Breathless Trilogy, and also the first book I am reading on my new Kindle! So far I am very impressed with how little my eyes strain to read it and how portable it is!

My summer of smut (books)

That's all for now. As soon as I get my next move figured out, I will update again, Until then, don't go wasting your summer, fools!

- Vanna