Recuperation

You see in the picture the way I look much of the time now. I try to keep my foot elevated as much as possible. When the Olympics begin, I may not have much trouble staying in this pose.

Regarding my surgery, the doctor said that my toe was a "classic" illustration of the ravages of arthritis. He did the same surgery on a woman right after he did mine, and her surgery took 30 minutes less time. Usually the procedure goes through well-defined steps: First peel back the skin, then move out the muscles and ligaments, then the nerves, and finally you are at the bone. In my case, when the skin was pulled back, it was a tangle of bone spurs, scar tissue, and all the other. He had to be very careful not to mistake a nerve for a blood vessel, so he had to let more bleeding occur just to be sure. To indicate how good a job he did, he lightly rubbed various parts of my toe (during my check-up five days after the surgery) and I had feeling in all the places. He was very pleased.

In most people, the piece of the bone that gets sawed off comes out in one piece. In my case he had to chisel it up into several smaller pieces to get it out. Therefore I think that no-one should question that my surgery was needed.

It is now a week and 4 days after the surgery, and I am having to hold myself back because I am feeling so good. I went to church today, both class and worship, and made it fine. I took a folding chair from home and propped my foot up both in the Bible class and in the worship.

As a preview of coming news, I will say that my next posting will be about something that happened during the worship assembly today. Happy speculating!