Somebody Pinch Me......

......I must be dreaming....

This morning I woke up excited to see my surgeon.  My husband drove me to my 10:30 appointment and although the waiting room was packed like a can of sardines, we were seen right away.  We were led into the "cast/suture removal room"  as I like to call it, and were greeted by a lovely, cheerful technician named Julie.  Julie led me to my table where I sat and she began to remove my cast.  She was very gentle and extremely professional.  She warned me of drainage and assured me that it was totally normal and nothing to be alarmed about.  Although I fully expected to see drainage, I sure did appreciate the heads up anyway.  The inside of my cast was cleaner than I had anticipated, and the incision appeared much larger than I expected!  Wow...I wish I had not forgotten my camera, it was quite the spectacle with all those sutures poking out, almost like a giant centipede, or something.  As surprising as it was to me, for some reason it was beautiful in my eyes. 

Dr. Johnson, my surgeon, came in and I smiled from ear to ear.  When asked how I was doing I was thrilled to give my doctor a positive report.  He looked at the incision and said that it looked very good, he was pleased.  Dr. Johnson then did something that I didn't know was going to happen today.... he began moving my ankle back and forth, with quite a bit of pressure, I might add. It felt like, for lack of a better word, a miracle.  I immediately burst into tears of joy and turned to my husband and told him that this was one of the happiest moments of my life. To move my ankle around and to not experiencine any pain while doing so, is nothing short of amazing. It was surreal. You know how a good morning stretch feels? So satisfying... that's how my ankle felt.  It had its first morning feel good kind of strecth that it has had in years, and years, and years.  I am basking in happiness. 

My husband and I chatted with Dr. Johnson while a resident removed my sutures, under close supervision.  The resident appeared to do a good job, shaky hands and all!  I have an incision on the back of my leg also, which was made to accomodate the stretching of my achilles tendon.  There, I have dissolvable sutures, so the ends were snipped and the rest were left alone.  Then came the new cast, a pretty snazzy number, if you ask me.  Yes, well, I chose hot pink and lime green.  That's right, hot pink and lime green.  I am proud to be sporting a hot pink cast with lime green stripes.  It's fun, and I knew my daughters would LOVE it.  They think I'm the coolest. :)  My colorful fashion statement has already been inked, day one of 28.  Difficult to imagine what it will look like four weeks from now. 

My next appointment is in four weeks.  At that time I will have my cast removed and ex-rays will be taken.  I am anxious to know if all is healing well.  I will be given my walking boot and will gradually begin to put weight on my new ankle.  VERY curious to see how that goes. 

So for now, I am walking (crutching) on cloud nine.  Today was a very happy day.

My hope is that everyone in pain gets to have their happy day.....  then days, weeks, years,decades....

Thanks for reading!
~Suzanne