I have officially been home from the hospital a week now. The reality that I have a significant injury is definitely settling in. Many things that I once took for granted have become very challenging or impossible. Mobility is by far my biggest issue. I can slowly hobble from room to room using crutches or a walker, but carrying anything is just about impossible. Ascending stairs is an arduous hopping process that I find semi-terrifying. I have become extremely reliant on my wonderful wife and kids for help in doing things. They’re happy to help of course, but I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t depressing being largely immobile and so reliant upon others.
My lower leg, ankle and foot are still quite swollen and bruised. The leg itself is definitely very sore and now aches, particularly in the places where my tibia was broken. While pain medication is definitely necessary to maintain comfort at this point, I have managed to reduce the amount that I’ve been taking by a third or so in the last week. Overall my many incisions look clean and dry which I’m pleased about. Some of the stitches have even started to itch a little bit, which while extremely annoying, is generally a good sign that my incision sites are starting to heal.
The most disconcerting part of my injury so far is the continual numbness that I have on both the top of my foot and my toes. I am also completely unable to move my big toe in an upward direction. Both of these issues were present in the hospital, but don’t seem to have improved much if at all over the last week. In the hospital these problems were attributed to the swelling in my leg messing with the nerves that run to my feet. As my swelling seems to have decreased over the last week I had been hoping to see some sort of inverse parallel where the numbness was concerned.
I’ve got an appointment with my surgeon in a few days. It will be interesting to get a professional take on where I stand in the recovery process.
