Had another follow-up today. I was supposed to last week, but the doctor had an emergency to deal with so it got pushed back. No big deal.
It’s healing up pretty nicely except for that one spot that’s been refusing to. That spot is down to a 1/8” to 3/16” diameter hole about 1/2” to 5/8” deep. I know because he was probing it with the stick of a swab. So I have another follow-up next week to see how it’s doing. And I still can’t get it wet so I’m still using the cast sleeve when I take a shower and I still can’t go swimming yet. Oh, and my estimated return to work got pushed back again.
Basically the pattern of the last few weeks.
It wasn’t all just holding pattern stuff though.
After unwrapping my foot and looking at it, the doctor removed the remaining stitches. So I’ve got that going for me. Instead of re-wrapping it with gauze, then cast wrap, then ace bandages, he said it looked good enough that I can switch to big band-aids. So no more nightly foot-wrapping ordeal. I should still use the betadine, though, just to be safe.
Upside? I had a couple of errands to run – I’m cleared to drive and walk (just not much), so I’m not completely dependent upon Stacie for the most basic of tasks anymore – and the lack of heavy wrapping meant I could wear a sock. If I’d gone out last night, I would have had to wear just the bandage and the weird orthotic shoe I was wearing before the surgery until they had me go back to the big boot. So I changed into jeans and both shoes when I got home from the doctor.
For the first time since late May, I was wearing people shoes and big boy pants. And it was everything I hoped it would be.
I also got the doctor pretty good at the end of the appointment. After we wrapped most of it up, I said “OK, we’re playing it by ear, so it’s constantly two weeks out. I get it. These things take time. You keep saying two weeks. So when is it going to grow back? Because I’m seeing zero sign of it even trying to!”
He froze, stared at me, asked “the toe?” and mumbled something about how he doesn’t think that’s very likely. Then he realized I was screwing with him and said “uh, six weeks! Yeah, six weeks!” Meanwhile, the resident he had with him was looking at me like I had lost all grasp of reality.
Good times.
My disability claim finally got sorted out last week; there had been a paperwork issue. I even got my first check. Then I got an email from HR asking where the paperwork was. I said I’d call the hospital and get it sent over, but before I could (I try to call the hospital on non-peak hours) HR contacted the disability people and requested it, resulting in me getting a call from the person handling my disability claim asking if I was OK with them sending the paperwork to HR. They can’t without authorization because of privacy issues. I said go for it, and she asked how my foot was doing.
This was clearly not her first rodeo, so when I described what was going on with the healing process she knew exactly what I was talking about and there were no issues. She knew these things happen and things heal on their own time. So when I mentioned the follow-up next week she just assumed my return to work would be delayed and extended my disability claim accordingly. That saved me some time, since this one call took care of the HR paperwork and the call I would have had to make to them to extend my claim. Which was nice.
So yeah, getting better but not quite there yet.