The journey of my ankle actually starts roughly two-ish years ago when I was setting up for an Abandon concert at the school. I tripped over an extension cord on the stage and fell off the front. My foot pivoted and I fell on my ankle/lower leg, resulting in what was later deemed to be a sprain. Right after I fell, I limped back to my dorm (which was on the third floor I might add....with no elevator) and my roommate ran up to our room and got me an ace bandage and I kept it wrapped, iced and elevated. The next day it was hurting really bad and at that point, I still hadn't seen a doctor and so I went to next morning and that was when they told me it was a sprain. I was told to keep doing what I was doing, and to come back in a week if it still hurt. I was back after four days or so with a lot more pain and the inability to move my toes, which is what I am trying to do in the above picture. The doctors at ambulatory care put me in a stir-up type brace and put me on crutches and scheduled me an appointment with a surgeon. I went to see the surgeon and he ordered an MRI.
The MRI showed evidence of a high ankle sprain, (an injury common when one soccer player's cleat grips the ground, and another soccer player accidentally lands on their lower leg/ankle) and so they put me in a walking boot and started physical therapy. They also kept me on the crutches for about 6-8 weeks after that. Little did I know, I would spend 17 weeks or so in the walking boot. It was awful and I didn't like it at all. I had to spend pretty much 24 hours a day in that thing. I was only allowed to take it off to shower. During that time, guess who took about 5 showers a day?! Yeah, that's right.....this girl! It got a little better when I got the chance to ditch the crutches. This was my first time on crutches, and they resulted in many, many times of stumbling onto my hurt foot and resulted in one time of doing the splits....darn crutching in the rain! After I finally got out of the boot, I thought that maybe that would be the end of it all, but I quickly had pain back and so I went to a doctor here since I was home on Christmas break. They gave me a lace up support thing for my foot and a brace for my knee that had started hurting in the process of all of this madness. I was in those until right before summer, and then I was released to take them off and see how it went. After that, it caused off and on pain, but I was able to keep it at bay and usually take care of it without having to go to the doctor...until Young Christian's Weekend in Branson thsi past April!
While we were in Branson in April 2012, after a day at Silver Dollar City, my feet hurt. It didn't worry me at all though, because we had just walked around SDC all day and so I expected it to be tired and possibly sore. I went to bed and woke up the next day and got ready to go then walked to the Ampitheater to watch one of my favorite Christian Bands (Sidewalk Prophets) play! Since my ankle hurt, we found a place to sit right up at the top so that I didn't have to climb stairs or anything like that. So we watched the concert and then the Bible Study portion started and we all sat down. My ankle started to swell and so I got Britt's attention to see if Matt could go and get me some ice. Matt did come back with ice, but also with EMT's for the park. They got me out of my seat and to the stairs you come down to enter the ampitheater. After questioning me about any recent injury, any known trauma to it in the last couple days, other things along those lines, they felt it would be best for me to go to the urgent care in Branson. Matt and Britt offered to take me since they had their car there and we began to make a plan. When all was said and done, my options were to hop all the way down to the bottom of the ampitheater so they could drive me to parking, or to hop the half mile or so through the park and then to parking. I opted for the first option and a paramedic went on one side and Matt was on the other. I hopped down 87 stairs I believe, on one foot, during a Bible Study....talk about distraction. They got me to Matt and Britt's car and then Matt and Britt met Beth at the church bus to get my bag. They took me to urgent care in Branson, and urgent care deemed it Tendinitis, and put me in a stirrup-type brace and prescribed 800 mg of Ibuprofen three time a day. They told me to go see a doctor again in 5-7 days. Matt, Britt, and I left to head back for Hannibal. We got home and little did I know, the "fun" was just beginning. I was coming home for my birthday the following weekend and so I called to ask the doctor what he wanted me to do, seeing as it was Easter weekend. He asked me if I could be home in time to get x-rays on Thursday and then he could see me Friday. To do this, I had to skip my after noon classes on Thursday, and so I set out for home to get x-rays done.
I showed up at the hospital to get x-rays done, (my doctor recently moved to a new facility and doesn't have an x-ray machine on sight, but his office is across the "street" from the hospital) and they give me a "fall risk" bracelet since I have a leg injury. I giggled and asked them if they gave it to me because of the leg injury or because of the fact that the next day was my 21st birthday. She chuckled and left it loose enough that I could slip it on and off (at this point in time it is in my memory box to go in my scrapbook). I went to the doctor the next day and he told me that unfortunately, the x-rays didn't show anything, and that meant having no idea what was wrong. He told me to keep wearing the brace until I was done with the school year (4-5 weeks) and if I was still having issues, to come back in. So *spoiler alert* I had to go back in, and he sent me out to a foot specialist.
I started going to a podiatrist and the first thing we tried was to tape my ankle and see if the pain could be helped by holding it in the proper position. We learned at this doctor's appointment, after x-raying the TOP of my foot, not just the side, that I was born with a foot condition. My toe bones are curved, and that is what causes me to walk with my foot turned in, which in turn hits my ankle bones together on the outside part of my foot. For this reason, he felt that taping it into the proper condition would help. It did help, but I had problems right after I took the tape off. The tape stays on for five days and then you remove it for at least two days and go back. After I went back, we decided to give the taping another try and the second time it didn't help at all. The first time though, I had just come out of packing and moving home from school. to doing very little walking. I considered the tape a bust and made a plan to go back to that foot specialist. I ended up having big disagreements with his course of action and looked for another doctor. That is when we remembered that my brother had gone to a foot specialist in the KC area and had a really good experience! So I looked up the information and made an appointment. From the first appointment, I knew I had made the right decision because when opening the door to the radio, I was greeted by the sound of "Positive, Encouraging K-Love." At the first appointment, we went over what I had done already as far as treatment went and he took a few x-rays. He ordered and MRI and I had that done the following day. At this point in time, it is right before the fourth of July, but I went back to the doctor right before the fourth to get the results of the MRI and to determine a course of action. After the doctor's appointment I was scheduled for surgery two weeks from the appointment date. I started preparing for surgery and packing for school! He put me in a walking boot from that point until surgery.
After surgery I was put into a soft cast and the real work began. I can home with strict orders to not put any weight on it at all. So I was stuck back on crutches. Thankfully this time, I was a little more graceful with them!
I went back to the doctor the Monday after surgery for him to check out the incision and to make sure it wasn't infected. This was the first time I got to see the cut and it was totally awesome in a really disgusting way! At this point, I was put back into the soft cast type thing and told still I was to not put weight down on it.
I left and that night started having intense pains in the back of my ankle and when I called, they told me to come back in. Turns out, that the ankle mold thing of the soft cast was pushing weird on the back of my ankle, and so I was taken out of that and down to just the athletic type wrap and gauze that was under it. I was in that for around a week and then went back to get checked out again for a routine post-op check-up. This was the projected date to get my stitches out.
When I got all unwrapped and such, he tried to take a few of the stitches out and determined that I needed another week with them. So he wrapped my foot up again, this time with smiley face wrap and I was out of there, back on my crutches. I still wasn't able to walk and school was coming closer and closer. Thankfully, I didn't have anything I had to get done before I moved back in. I mean, I was packed for school and I had gotten help to move in at school and help to move out here.
When I went back, all the stitches were taken out. I meant to ask him how many were in there, but I forgot. :( anywho, after the stitches came out, I was told that I could start walking with the walking boot after a couple of days. I was ecstatic. I had been impatiently waiting to walk since the day I left the hospital and all I had was a couple of days left. I scheduled an appointment for a week or two weeks later, I honestly don't remember how long ago the stitches came out. There is a lot going on. Anyway, I started walking and it has gone well so far.
Today when I went in for my final check-up, he told me I could take the boot of and start walking with two shoes! I was so excited! I came home and the very first thing I did was to find and put on the mate to the left shoe I was wearing! If you know me, you know that the first thing I usually do when I get inside the house is to take my shoes OFF! I was just too excited about being able to wear two shoes now, that I am still wearing them two hours after I got home. I did have a moment of worry as I took that first step and almost ate the floor. I guess I was just so used to walking with the boot on, that I didn't know how to adjust when I didn't have it on. No worries though, I didn't fall and I quickly recovered and all's well now! The doctor is also very happy with how my incision is healing, so that is also a good thing. Also, today I found a tattoo that I want to get to cover the scar after a bit. I am going to definitely give it time to heal and heal completely, but I want to do something with it at some point in the future! As long as walking continues to go well, I will be out of the walking boot for good! If I have problems with it here in the next couple weeks though, I will have to go back into it for a while, which would definitely not be very much fun. Now if only we could get this knee taken care of! The doctor believes that it will help to get out of the boot, and he also thinks that when I get orthodics (one final-ish step to recovering) for the flat footed-ness, that those will also help it to feel better! Until then, I just have to try and tough it out a bit and see if it starts to feel better on its own! Until next time, I bid you farewell, and leave you with a picture of my incision that is "healing up very nicely." Only time in my life that I have EVER gotten complimented on my feet. lol
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