Post-Op Appointment #1

Today's appointment was unexpectedly eventful. I went back to my doctor so my cast could be taken off, my foot examined, and a new cast put on. That was all. However it ended up taking well over an hour for the reasons I will say below.

My appointment was late getting started but once I got in, one of the not-my-doctor medical personnel vibrated my cast off with an intimidating little tool. It doesn't cut, just vibrates really hardcore and makes the fiberglass on the cast come apart where the tool is. It's science.

The unexpected part was where suddenly for no reason at all, I got extremely lightheaded and almost passed out during and after they got the cast off. This is apparently fairly common, and none of the personnel who rushed over could explain exactly why it happens- just that sometimes, something that has to do with buzzing the cast off makes people woozy sometimes. They gave me crackers and water for free to help, and later on when I started looking faint again while trying to hobble down the hall, they put me in a wheelchair and pushed me so I wouldn't get hurt (I am somewhat of a liability due to my accident-prone nature).

Once I started looking alive again the doctor took an XRay (and I had to lay back down so I didn't faint again), and my foot is doing pretty well. I took a glance at the sutures in my foot, but decided at the last minute not to get a eyeful of it because I was already nauseated by the bruising and swelling (I bruise and swell quite easily, and when they did surgery, my whole foot had swollen up and still looked a little poofy). It hurt moderately to not have the cast on, but they put a new one on fairly quickly.

I picked a lovely shade of eye-catching green for this week until my next appointment next week, at which time this same ordeal is supposed to happen again, hopefully minus the fainting spree, and I plan on getting purple instead of green.

This was one of those times where I was glad I had semi-randomly ended up at this particular podiatrist's office instead of somewhere else. Even the receptionists were understanding and nice- the crackers I ate when I was woozy were actually part of one receptionist's lunch, which I only found out afterwards, once I'd already eaten them and couldn't refuse. This office where I'm going for my post-surgery appointments is Podiatry Associates of New Mexico, or PANM, in Albuquerque. I've seen two doctors there, however the doctor I mention in this blog, and the surgeon (who are the same person) is Dr. Giles.