After yesterday's reschedule of surgery, we got a phone call at 0815 today rescheduling me again from 1330 to 1130. As it happened, Dr. Ciccinelli was delayed in another surgery and we didn't get started until around 1230. Today's surgery had two goals:
- Remove some additional bone from the little toe of my left foot to allow the toe to straighten again
- Clean up the area of the big toe that has been repeatedly throwing abscesses.
The former appears to have been pretty successful. With just under a quarter inch of bone removed and the extensor digitorum longus tendon resected, that toe should no longer try to curl under. The big toe turned out to be a rather more major procedure, with some sizeable chunks of bone and a big wedge of tissue removed around where the abscesses have been forming. With any luck, this will end the string of abscesses. Time will tell on this one, however. Once again, I got to watch the whole procedure, discussing instruments and the anatomy of the foot and choices of suture with Dr. Ciccinelli as he worked.
Unfortunately, the local started wearing off about halfway through the big toe, and the Percocet that I took as soon as I got home didn't really start to kick in for about an hour. This meant some pretty serious discomfort from leaving the office around 1400 until about 1520 or so. (More succinctly, it hurt like fuck.) I'm supposed to keep it elevated, ice it occasionally for the first few days if need be, etc, etc.
I'm going to be somewhat immobile for a little while. First post-op is next Thursday, then the sutures should come out a week after that.