Week 17 Roundup and August Appointment

My feet have been continuing to improve over the last two weeks and I am really pleased with them. I can walk barefoot now with no pain and the scarring is looking much better. I have been back into school a couple of times and finished getting my classroom ready for the new term (which starts next week!) and I've been getting out and about quite a bit more, including going down to London with my parents to visit family, which was lovely. I was pleased with how my feet coped with being down for that length of time and it was fun to show off my new feet!

Here are some recent photos. I managed to take some when my feet were not swollen so you can see the really good shape of them.

I think they look really good and if you look closely around the big toe area you can actually see the screws a bit. I quite enjoy that and have had fun getting people to touch them and freaking them out!

You can see the screw on the right foot even more clearly here!

The other main thing that happened this week was returning to the hospital for my check-up with the surgeon. Unfortunately, I was not able to see the surgeon and instead had to meet the registrar. He looked at my feet and asked me to walk up and down. He didn't seem very pleased with how I was walking and commented that I was bearing a lot of weight on my heels. I found this a bit rude really, especially considering how I used to walk barefoot! Then he mentioned, very casually, that if the screws protrude they sometimes need to be removed with a second surgical procedure. This was news to us and a bit of a shock. As my feet were a little puffy at the time, he couldn't see the screws when he said this but I told him that they were visible when my feet were not swollen. My husband and I asked a few follow up questions and he seemed quite reticent to answer, saying that we shouldn't think about it at the moment. We managed to get out of him that I would probably need a week or two off work to recover and about one in five people have to have the screws removed. He referred me to come back in January for a further check-up where I would have an X-ray and they could assess the situation with the screws.

I was not very impressed with the consultation and found his manner quite disconcerting. I was also disappointed not to see my surgeon. As I still had some worries and questions based on his comments, I emailed my surgeon to ask her about the possibility of having to have the screws removed. Hopefully she will be able to reply and explain the situation a bit better. An unfortunate recurring theme in this process is that meeting with anyone other than the surgeon will lead to me feeling a bit worried and unsure! Hopefully, when I go back in January I will see my surgeon and I will feel confident about the outcome of the consultation. In the meantime, I am looking forward to returning to work and hopeful that it will not be too much of a shock to the system!