Post Surgery

The thing I remember most about coming out of surgery was being SO HUNGRY! You have to fast starting the night before surgery and when I woke up it was about 3 p.m. I had not eaten in over 15 hours! In order to leave I had to eat two granola bars and a bowl of soup which I did no problem. As we are going to the car I asked my mom to stop at Chipotle, I still was starving! Once we were home I mowed through the burrito and took a three hour nap on the couch. I slept the most in my life the three to four days after surgery as my body was trying to heal. I now had three screws and a plate in my left foot to try and fix all of the damage that I had done.

I was not really used to a sedentary lifestyle.  During the summer it is VERY unusual that I watch TV at all much less during the day. After surgery I was put on house arrest for 10 days. I dont think I have ever watched that many movies or tanned for that long. I never knew how much I took for granted just being able to leave home for a little bit! Luckily I have amazing friends that came to visit and spend time with me so it wasnt so bad. At about day 5 my dad snuck me out of the house and took me to dinner because he knew I was going crazy. That weekend I talked him into letting me go to watch the Danes play. I still had many conflicting feelings but it was great to see my teammates and wish them luck before heading to nationals. It killed me not to be traveling with them but it would be even worse being there and having to sit out after making my parents drive thousands of miles.  It would not be fair to ask that of them.

After the 10 days I went in to get my soft cast cut off and a hard cast put on. I wore that for 4 weeks during the summer. Yes, THE SUMMER! So that meant no swimming, nothing like that. Without inventing new ways to do the things I love I would have gone crazy. I found a way to go swimming in the kiddie pool so I could be in the water a little bit.

Getting my cast off was one of the best feelings in the world. When I looked down at my foot it did not look human. I am a huge fan if The Walking Dead and my brother and I agreed it looked like a zombie foot. After getting the cast cut off I had to take x-rays. Simply standing on that foot felt foreign. It was as if I had forgotten how the stand normally on two feet. It felt like I had a bunch of tiny rocks in the bottoms of my feet. It was the craziest feeling and is so hard to explain, but it was from all of the blood pooling and the lack of use. I was so happy to finally be getting out of the cast but I felt far from normal. I would spend the next 4 weeks on crutches and in a boot. After that I slowly began to ween off the crutches and into a boot and finally a shoe! It was about a 9 week process to get there. In the beginning I walked with a nice limp because I was so used to the different height of the boot. I got plenty of crap from my friends and family about it but I was just so happy to be walking on my own. Just over 3 months after I got hurt I was finally walking on my own. Most of the waiting was finally over and now I could focus on working to get better.