Ankle update

You may remember that I sprained my ankle a year an a half ago. A few months ago I saw a podiatrist who finally diagnosed that I had stretched ligaments. Before letting him operate, we wanted a second opinion and I found a Orthopaedic surgeon who specialized in ankles in Minneapolis who operated on the friend of a friend's ankle.

So, this week we drove 7 hours for me to see an orthopaedic surgeon here. I'm glad we came. I like the doc, he does this operation a few times a week - it's his specialty.

I'm glad I didn't see him first as my mother would not have trusted his instinct (he goes more by feel and takes xrays/MRIs to protect himself.) But, I know he's right and I came to him for confirmation.

So, my ligaments are too stretched on both ankles. Only one is giving me problems, so we only fix one - although the other is at the fixable point. I may get it fixed someday if it starts giving me problems. He showed me the comparison of how much both ankles moved compared to my wrists (which have a similar structure).

He also pointed out the point on my MRI where it shows the torn tendon. The radiologist that read the image missed it, as did the ortho at home and the podiatrist. I liked that he read the image I brought with me (thank goodness I did) rather than just looking at the radiology report and glancing at the image. I guess one thing in my favor is that he's caught a couple of misses that our radiologist have reported as our sports med doc sends a lot of his ankle patients to him. So, he doesn't trust them completely.

So, the tendon will get fixed too as it's unlikely that it was fixed on its own over the past year since the MRI was done. I probably would have had this fixed a year ago - if it hadn't been missed. Then again, the ortho at home (he's specialty is shoulders and knees) probably would not have fixed the ligaments so my problems would have been continued to some extent.

I will be in a split cast for 4 weeks - on crutches and bearing no weight. For the first 10 days, I need to keep my ankle elevated. Thankfully, I will only have a few weeks of walking up the stairs to my house to get to the car. It will be horrible when I have to get up the stairs the day of surgery after driving 7 hours home.

He suggested driving home from the surgery while my leg has the nerve blocker rather than the next day or so. Makes sense.

I really don't want anyone to come stay with me as I would like to be by myself during the day instead of feeling like I have to have someone who is restless because they are not in their house and being under foot.

Then, I get to have the girls help me take the cast off and cut my stitches (disolvable ones) and change to the walking boot for 2 weeks before starting PT.

So, we need to figure out which Aunt to stay with in Minneapolis, see what to do with the girls while I"m having the surgery, get a handicap pass for the car before I have the surgery (in the package of info they gave me an application for MN, but I need the MI one), and stock up on food/movies, and see if I can arrange for my friends to bring meals and maybe find a house cleaner to come by once or twice.

Thankfully - he said that if I do my PT, my ankle will be great in 4-6 mos and I can do all my PT and any followups at my hometown.

So, movie recs would be appreciated!