FOOT SURGERY

After finalizing our plans for our California trip and making a few reservations, I had to go and throw a clinker into our plans….

I'm an avid walker and hiker.  I had manage to get my walking back up to about 8-10 miles a day.  Doing two miles in the morning with Brian and our Min Pin, Leah and then speed walking 3.25 miles in the afternoon and then finishing up after supper with a very long walk with just Brian.  We would walk  anywhere from 3 to maybe 4 miles.

Walking out on the desert floor in Quartzsite isn’t like walking  a pavement or sandy beach  .  You have varies size of rocks and some boulders to move around.  Sometimes you don’t see a particular rock until you “stumble” over it.

One day as I’m doing my usual routine, I felt a sharp pain at the ball of my right foot.  thinking that I have weakened the bottom of my shoe and now I can feel every rock I step on.  Instead of trading out for another new pair, I ignore it and kept on trekking in the same shoes for another week or so.  Until one day I felt a huge bump on the bottom of my foot that started to get a little painful, even without shoes on.

Making a decision to stop walking and putting ice on the injured area that all would be fine in a few short days.  The swelling went down, but instead of disappearing, it harden and the more it harden, the more painful it got….

No choice left in the matter now but to find a foot specialist…There is none in a 60+mile radius to us.  Only option is either go up to Lake Havasu City or down to Yuma AZ.  Lake Havasu only had one foot specialist and he couldn’t fit me in until late March.  There were several more foot specialist located in Yuma, but only one could squeeze me in right away.

Having foot surgery two years previous on the same foot, I already knew it was no brainer, that I would need surgery once again…

So moving out of the BLM in Quartzsite,  and moving closer to Yuma to another Longer Term Area on BLM land called Imperial Dam,  put us a little closer to the foot specialist that I would be seeing.

We found the office and was amazed to discovered it was in an old house-remodeled into an office.  As we walked into the very tiny waiting room and looked around, I couldn’t help but give Brian the look of “OMG-What did we get into”??  There are all sorts of  pictures of Harley-Davidson bikes and pictures of what we assumed was the doctor riding all over American and abroad on his Harley.  And as more people “pile” in, there was literally no room and several folks had to wait outside!

When I get called back into a room, we met the doctor, he was wearing faded blue jeans and a striped shirt and has spiked hair.  As he introduce himself we both immediately liked him for he was very upbeat and down to earth.

I had two options to my foot: One-doing shots on a weekly basis for 8-12 weeks, that would dissolve the mass in my foot. Problem was the chance of it coming back was greater than option two.  Two-having surgery to remove this mass (called Neuroma) with only a 5% of it ever returning.  Scar tissues being the bigger issue.  We opted  for “Two”.  Two was more evasive and more painful, but better chance of it not coming back.

We explained to the doctor that we had upcoming reservations in the middle of May for Yosemite, and he assured me that I would be back to hiking once again by that time-providing he could do the surgery in the following week.  So he squeezed me and another elderly gentleman in for early surgery the following week.  Now, how many doctors would you find that would go to that extreme?  Not many…Thank You Dr. Feinberg!

we now only faced on major problem to our situation.  Since I’m the sole driver and know that I would not be allowed to drive during my recuperation, we didn’t know how we would get around.  We knew no one out here to assist us….so the next best option we had was to move into a private park in Yuma and find us a half way decent taxi that would be able to drive us to and from the doctors office.

After finding a private park, we got settled into our “temporary” spot.  Out comes all those to help assist us in parking.  Oh, if only the cameras were rolling-hilarious!….anyways, after about 30 minutes of zigging and zagging of every which way, but the right way, we finally got parked….whew-don’t want to do that again!!!

Although the manager of the park seems very nice-we soon discovered that not too many others here in the park are not as friendly.  Even though we had “several” helpers, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of them since.  Now our neighbor behind us is a different story.  We met them and they have become very helpful in our situation.  I wonder if it’s because they hail from Brainerd MN????  Anyways, he has offered to drive us to my surgery and thereafter.  His wife refuses to allow him to use his truck and insist we take her car; making it much easier for me to get in and out.  To boot, she is a traveling nurse that is temporary working at the local hospital and has checked up on me twice to make sure all is okay.

Prior to surgery I go in for one more check and the Doctor tells us what he plans on doing.  He gives me my prescription ahead of time so that I can get them filled.  Once surgery is done, he wants me home and off my foot for 3 straight days-other than a post op check the next day.

Surgery wasn’t  in the original office that we first visited (the remodeled house).  The office we first met the doctor in is only open during the winter months when the snowbirds come down.  His main office is near the hospital in Yuma and much more on a professional level. The room in which I had the surgery in, looks just like a miniature operating room.

As I stated earlier, Dr. Feinberg's love for the Harley Davidson Bike is apparent in both offices.  We enjoyed sharing traveling stories with him, and out of all of his patients that he must see on a day-to-day basis, he remembered that we have an upcoming trip to Yosemite National Park-now how amazing of a person is that???

Surgery went very well, and enjoyed a nice conversation with the doctor while he “worked” on my foot. right afterwards I was placed into a surgical boot that I must now where anytime I’m on my foot until the stitches are removed. So it was now time to go home and just relax and take it easy.

With my first foot surgery I did just fine with Tramadol pain med and don’t like to take any other type of narcotic drugs (due to my sensitivity levels to them).  After my surgery and the numbness wore off, and the Tramadol didn’t seem to help much-I broke down, called the Doctor and told him that I was in a lot of pain and HELP!  He ordered me some good stuff (hydrocodone) and that seemed to help greatly.

Now it’s just healing time for me.  The surgical boot that I must wear now, is just a bit too big for my small foot, making it a little hard and uncomfortable to get around, but I’m managing.

Each day does get better and I’m now trying to go without the pain meds and so far-so good. 

I ended up with two long incision and about 12 stitches on the bottom of my foot.

 

At the post op check, the Doctor was pleased that the swelling was very minimal.  If all goes good and I’m lucky, stitches will come out in 17 days, and maybe we will be able to get out of here and start our adventure to California!

By the way-we never saw him again in blue jeans, but instead professionally dressed.  We told him we liked him in his blue jeans-makes him look more down to earth.

Thank You Dr. Feinberg for your time and patience with me-you are an amazing foot doctor!