Pre-op report

[unixronin]

Three things to note:

First, surgery is scheduled to remove the bone spur on my toe on Wednesday November 2 at 1300E.

Second, Dr. Kaufman's opinion is that the restricted motion in my left ankle is due to traumatic arthritis in two of the joints within the ankle, and that -- as I'd thought from the start -- it's not an achilles-tendon issue, there is bone-on-bone blockage.

Third, although such issues are normally addressed by fusion of the ankle, I came up with an idea for how we might be able to correct the problem or at least improve the situation by moving what range of motion I have into a more useful range, and Dr. Kaufman believes it may work.  It's going to take some farily in-depth study to see if it's feasible though, and if we try it, I expect I'll be non-weight-bearing on that leg for probably six to eight weeks.

Comments

[motomuffin.livejournal.com]

Hooray for getting rid of bone-spurs! (I've got a big one in my ankle that'll be getting gone as soon as riding season is over... which may be months from now...)

Best of luck!

Bummer about back-on-crutches though. :(

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Crutches. Bah. You've just reminded me that I don't know whether my specially-modified crutches are actually here or still in North Carolina. I was on them so much I had to pad the handles with gel pads and neoprene foam to avoid carpal tunnel problems.

I just called cymrullewes' in-laws (or, now, out-laws) in North Carolina, and they're going to check tomorrow morning and ship them to us if they're still there.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Wow! I wish you good luck with the bone spur surgery, and hope that you are, in fact, able to incrase range of motion in your ankle.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, the ideal would be to be able to identify and relieve the block, and increase the range of motion. But even if we can't increase the range of motion beyond the 17° I just measured it at, I'm hoping we can move that range from the current limits of around -10° to -27° to something more useful like, maybe, say, +5° to -12°.

This may be a job more for an orthopedist than a podiatrist.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

g'luck!

He's listening

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

That's a good thing. I hope the studies pan out. If they do, it could be worth being off the leg that long, and you know that I understand what that's like!

Crutches

[parishnurse.livejournal.com]

I have them!

Re: Crutches

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Told him that.