11-20-13 – My trip back to Dr. Gent for my first post HyProCure Surgery appointment at 5 days since the surgery. See my prior blog for the surgical details. Here are photos taken this day at his office. Click on the photos to enlarge and please pardon the scales on my skin. This is what happens when your leg is in a cast for a long time. Otherwise not too bad. Dr. Gent was extremely pleased with the minimal swelling of my ankle and the surgical incision was just fine. However, my ankle was very stiff because of the 9 weeks of prior casts for healing my talus fracture. Even though the fracture had been healed per my CT Scan 2 weeks earlier, I had remained in a cast till Dr. Gent had sawed it off right before I was wheeled into the operating room. It was imperative that my talus alignment be maintained till he put the HyProCure #6 stent in place. For those patients that have this surgery and may be reading these blogs, please keep in mind that we all heal at different rates. Because of the prior non-weight bearing and short leg casts, I came into this surgery already in a weakened state with my lower leg and I will probably need more physical therapy than the average HyProCure surgery patient. I have to recondition my entire left leg besides healing from the surgery itself.
Here is my youtube video of Dr. Gent discussing the minimally invasive HyProCure Implant into the Sinus Tarsi to stabilize my talus bone over the navicular and calcaneus . Even though I was allowed some weight bearing with my crutches as tolerated after the surgery, it was not that easy. But at this 5-day post op appointment , I was already doing so much better and Dr. Gent took me out of the heavy ace wraps and posterior splint and I was then allowed to bear more weight in a CAM walking boot as tolerated.
11-21-13 – I flew out of Seattle back to Idaho on a beautiful sunny day after several days of overcast and rainy weather. Alaska Air wheelchair service was great. I had no additional pain with my leg being down longer on this day of travel. While on the airplane, I used an instant cold pack tucked under my ace wrap on my ankle. After arriving in Idaho, I saw my Chiropractor, Dr. Sheldon at the end of that business day to get any kinks out of my back from sitting around with my leg up for the previous few days. I showed him my post-surgical left ankle and he thought it was looking good too. Dr. Gent wanted me to start physical therapy as soon as possible and further updates on my recovery to be posted soon. Stay tuned! Here is now the link to my next update blog.
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