Cristy's Foot Suregery

I had bunions. On both feet. They hurt. Bunions? What are they? Here, read this Wikipedia article about bunions. I have had bunions on my feet for as long as I can remember. I have always had the inside of my tennis shoes wear out right at this spot. I never really paid any attention to the bunions, and actually really liked my feet. I thought they were cute. I even had my tattoo of Mason's name put on my right foot, drawing attention to my feet.

In September 2009, I started having problems with my feet. I started a marathon training program to prepare myself to run the Austin 1/2 Marathon in February of 2010. I thought that maybe a running group would help me be accountable to others and myself to get me in shape and help me loose weight. I did the program for only about 6 weeks. I never actually ran. I did a lot of walking and jogging. After about a month in, my feet would be sore during the training hour. Sore feet after starting a new running program? Sure, that's normal I assumed. But the pain started lasting longer than just the hour I was walking, and the pain started moving beyond just my feet.

I asked the group's podiatrist if there were some special exercises I could do for my feet. He told me I had pretty bad bunions and that they may impact how much I would be able to do as far as running goes. Bunions are there. They don't "go away" on their own. You either manage the pain or you have surgery to get rid of them. By the time I dropped the running program, my feet were hurting for up to a day or two after I would train. Not good when I have four kids to care for.

By 2011, my foot pain was to the point of my needing to ice my feet and take over the counter pain medicine several times a week. I made an appointment for a podiatrist to look at my feet. Result: I had bunions. There was nothing I could about them other than manage the pain, unless I wanted to consider surgery. She gave my some recommendations about better shoes to wear and gave me custom orthodics to insert into said shoes and sent me on my way.

When I first changed my footwear, the pain decreased and on some days I had no foot pain at all. But after only 5 short months, the pain was back and in full force. I was icing my feet and taking Tylenol and Motrin daily. Matt and I researched the bunion surgery. The hardest thing about the surgery is the recovery. I was going to need to be off my feet completely for about 6 weeks. No driving, no walking, no taking care of the children. Luckily, Matt's mom, being retired now, said she'd be able to come help out for a couple of weeks and my mom said she could come too.

I asked the podiatrist if I could have both feet done at the same time, to just get it all done at once and be done with it. Well, that's not possible. He said it would be like amputating both feet at the same time. How was I going to go to the bathroom? take a shower? If we do one at a time, at least I'd still have use of the other foot to get around on.

So, last week I had my right foot operated on. This was the more severe bunion and the harder, more complicated surgery. It doesn't hurt too bad. Granted I am saying this after the hardest part, those first few days. I am pretty much bed/couch ridden. I can get around with a wheelchair, crutches, or the easiest way, a knee-scooter.


This is the x-ray for my feet. The picture on the left and then center are the before pictures for my left and right feet. The far right x-ray is my right foot post surgery. You can see the first metatarsal (toe) bone is much straighter now and it is being held in place with a plate and several screws. Those are permanent and will not come out.







The left picture is the before photo. The right is 3-days post surgery. My foot is still very swollen, but you can already see how much straighter it is. The bunion is almost completely gone. I think I counted about 20 stitches there. Yikes! I get those taken out in another week and hopefully most of the swelling will be gone. I'll post another picture then.

Oh, and the doctor was very excited that he was able to make his incisions around my tattoo. :)