4-13-17 SURGERY DAY!

So I had an appointment with Dr. K yesterday on the 12th. We took x-rays again to check on my left foot and it's still the same. So we went over my options. My right foot will be removed completely! My left foot WILL ALSO BE REMOVED! He said that this is pretty rare and he has seen it before. So what he is going to do is actually remove the fixators off both feet. The left foot he will then put a pin into the center of the bone that will act as the device I have on the outside. This was I can get that removed and head back to work. My work wouldn't let me come back with the things on the outside because I work in a warehouse. He then will inject my left foot with a serum that has stem cells in it to kick start my bone growth again which I'm super excited about. Then in about 6-8 weeks I can get the pin removed. It is completely under my skin and not visible. We also discussed the tendon release. My toes don't bend upward as if to go on your tip toes. He said that sometimes the pins interfere with the tendons so once he removes everything from my feet he will manipulate my toes and see if I need that.

The surgery went extremely well. I was at a different hospital this time Holy Cross surgical center in Mission Hills CA for insurance reasons. Everyone here was amazing and so wonderfully nice! Dr. K took out both fixators and put the injection and pin in my left foot. He also released the tendons in both of my toes and put a small wire through the tip of my right toe. He said that it was wanting to angle upward and I will keep that in and get it removed with the other pin in 6-8 weeks. I'm in barely any pain. Only my left ankle kinda feels sore. Other than that I'm still pretty numbed up so I'll do an update later on that. I have a follow up appointment with him on Monday so I'll do another post then with pictures of my feet unwrapped and an update on pain. For shoes to wear he mentioned that I get some stiff shoes that don't bend much and wear those for a while. So I went out and bought a nice pair of Timberland boots that are really stiff but cute to wear as well. (:

This is the pin through my left
foot you can still see where it's
not healed completely.

My wrapped up fixatorless feet!!

3-24-17 X-rays and bad/great news.

I another set of x-rays. They still show my bone not healing. It's going extremely slow. This is called delayed union. It can take the bone twice as long to heal as it normally should. I called up Dr. K and he said that he has seen this before and there is no explanation as to why it happens. He said my right foot is ready to get removed and I am extremely excited about that and am going to fly out to Cali to get the right one removed. I am hoping that in the next three weeks before I get there my left foot amazingly heals itself. I know it won't but hey miracles happen. At least I'll be able to drive again getting my right foot removed! Here are my x-rays.

Left foot still not quite there.

Right foot ready to be removed!!

3-3-17 X-rays and sad birthday news.

So it's been three weeks and I was hoping that my left foot would have finally caught up and healed for me for my birthday this month and is has not. My right foot is almost there! Here are the X-rays. Physical therapy has been wonderful however we are stuck at a plateau because my tendons are so tight. So it's really not doing anything anymore. Here are my x-rays.

Left foot still not unionized.

Right foot basically healed.

Xrays and 3rd physical therapy appointment! 2-10-17

I now get X-rays every 3 weeks instead of every 2 weeks. We are looking at bone growth now. It's the countdown to fixator removal! It's been 3 weeks since my last X-rays at his office and he said 8-10 weeks so that means I have about 5-7 weeks left! I'm taking my vitamins to try and promote healthy bone growth so lets hope for the less amount of time but I'm willing to wait because if the fixators are off too early the bone is still soft and with no support it can collapse and you can actually loose length and will have to repeat this whole process in order to fix it NO THANK YOU NEVER AGAIN! I will post my X-rays below my left foot the bone has not unionized yet but it's almost there! My right foot the bone has unionized so now time to solidify. The whiter it gets on the X-ray the harder the bone is getting.

I'm now on my third physical therapy appointment. So what happened is that we actually bumped up the times I go to 3 times a week instead of 1-2. I need a lot of work done and when I get these fixations off I want to feel as normal and free as I possibly can! I have big goals to achieve in due time once this is all done. Im going to finally start racing and I'm working towards my spartan trifecta!!! I will achieve that goal but there is no way I possibly could at my flexibility at the moment. So my therapist gave me more exercises to do that are now working on my hips! They make me sore but it's a good feeling I think coming out of this I will also have a nice firm booty too hahaha! Anyway, the way she describes this is that when you don't use a joint for a long period of time is that it freezes. What that means is there is a capsule and in this capsule are tendons and ligaments that tighten up. You need to work on them to loosen it up and boy is it a slow process! However I have already made great progress in just 3 visits and my exercises at home I've been doing. My flexion in my brachy toes is actually great! Flexion is bending the toes down like curling them, my brachy toes are able to do what all of my other toes can do! She said that flexion comes first it's easier to achieve and then extension comes next. Extension is moving them upward like if you were to put your foot into heels your toes would need to extend. My toes are slowly but surely working their way upward. I'm at 20% extension in only 3 visits. Prior to that I was at 0% it barely would move so I'm extremely happy at that. She also can't work on my toe as much as normally because of my bones not being hard enough and having hardware in it gets in the way. She said I'll see better results once I get these off because then she can really go in and just work my toes. So far my toes are stiff in the beginning for a few seconds and its about 2 second of pain and then my toe starts to release as she works at it and after that it feels so amazing like releasing and relief its great. I'm so excited for the future and I'm really hoping that by the time I get these fixators off ill be near 100% maybe at the 60-80% range! I have quite a few more weeks so I have about 15-21 more visits before fixator removal so fingers crossed! I will keep you all updated on my progress.

I'm still waiting to hear from my doctor on the results of my X-rays.

Left no unionized bone yet

Right unionized bone!

2-2-17 First Physical Therapy Appointment

Hey everyone!

So these past many days have been a struggle for me but after this physical therapy appointment I am extremely excited and optimistic!!!!

My toe has not been wanting to move at all whatsoever... It is just stuck frozen in this position.... neutral (straight). Now what is happening is it's starting to slide under my third toe on each foot because it does sit lower than all my other toes. I was not able to walk on my bare feet for a while because of this. These toes have never touched the ground before and now that its starting to and it's the first toe to touch and the fact it doesn't give way makes it really sensitive and irritated.

Fast forward to after this physical therapy appointment. She gave me two exercises to do. One of them is to put a towel on a hard surface and sit in a chair and put your feet on the towel. She wants me to the scrunch my toes to scrunch the towel up and then un-scrunch the towel with my toes. She said to do this for three minutes. Then she told me keep my feet on the towel and slide my feet backwards but keep heels touching the ground to stretch. I do this 20 times and hold it for 10 seconds.  I do this 4 times a day. She also works on my toes for about 30 minutes each. It hurt so bad at first but then it released a little and started to feel relaxing and good! After she was done my toe was relaxed and flat no longer pushing down into the ground...sadly this faded and it went back to its tucked lower position throughout the day. She mentioned that because I was living most of my life with brachymetatarsia that my knees and hips were also out of whack. She told me she was going to contact Dr. K and ask him if she would be able to start on some hip and knee strengthening exercises next time and some soft tissue work as well! Dr. K is so nice I'm sure there will be no problem with him saying that it is fine! I really like my physical therapist as well she is super nice and extremely helpful and knowledgable. She said she has never seen this in her life. She specializes in the lower half of bodies so she knows everything that will help me but she said I am a very difficult patient but it makes it fun. I go to Athletico physical therapy.

1-23-17 Follow Up Appointment

This Monday was a follow up appointment after the wire removal surgery. I went into his office and they took X-rays which sadly I don't have to display for this post! I was then taken into a room and Dr. K removed my bandages. My toes were swollen and puffy of course but the issue now is that my brachy toes wouldn't move at all. They were completely frozen. This is a common thing that happen to joints that aren't moved in a long time. My toes at this point haven't moved in about three months! Dr. K showed me a way to try and start move it to loosen it up but when I tried it was so painful and it freaked me out touching it knowing it should be moving and it wouldn't I couldn't do it. He then prescribed me physical therapy. He wrote on the order form for them to focus on the range of motion in my fourth metatarsal joints for 1-2 days a week. He said other than that everything looks great and he is extremely impressed with the way my toes look and said that they look so natural!!! He mentioned now that it could take about 8-10 weeks before pin and fixator removal because now my bone needs to completely calcify and become solid!

NOW STARTS THE COUNTDOWN TO REMOVAL!!!!!!!!!

Left foot 

Right foot 

1-21-17 Second Surgery

Hello everyone here is an update!!

The wires through the tip of my toes needed to come out! I called Dr. K and talked to him about my options. I told him that the wires through the tips of my toes were now angled down towards the ground and this started causing me terrible pain. In the boots and walking without the boots the wires would push into the ground which caused a ripping feeling where the skin was around the wire which sucked so bad. It was also pushing up on my toe that was excruciating! He told me that he normally doesn't take these out until the whole fixator comes out because there is a small chance that the toe could become a little deformed but that a simple surgery could fix it. However he told me that if I couldn't walk normally though it would hinder my healing process and that it's better to remove it. I was not walking normally at all. I was putting my weight on the insides of my feet. My ankles were killing me and my legs were hurting like hell so we set up a day for surgery for removal of the wires.

I flew back to Cali and had my surgery set up for a Saturday at his new surgery center. I got there and was told to do the same things as before change, got my IV set up and was wheeled into surgery. I was put under light sedation, I was still completely under, Dr. K removed the wires and then put a corticosteroid shot in each brachy joint. Forgot to mention at this point I was at complete length. After the surgery I scheduled a follow up appointment for that Monday. The surgery went very well! It was an instant relief once the wires were removed.