As some of you know, I wear a brace on my right foot/leg when out of the house to help me walk better, all as effects of the right-sided hemiparesis I have from a stroke I endured right after my birth. After sixth grade I had soft-tissue surgery to help reshape my right foot, which did help quite a bit for some years thereafter. Over the past few years my right foot has been increasingly curving inwards, and starting to be more painful more of the time, even when not walking around. This includes me recognizing how this may be starting to affect my right knee and overall leg position, which is not great for long term health. I’ve been getting seen by the same surgeon who performed the earlier surgery twice a year or so since before that surgery up through now, each time thinking about the pros and cons of additional surgery.
I’ve made the decision that the time has come where I should get the more invasive hard-tissue surgery that fuses some of the bones in my right foot and lengthens tendons to reshape my foot into a better position (triple arthrodesis surgery). This comes out of not just the state of my physical health, but also the reality that while living with my parents and working from home in technology consulting at the moment I have better support for such a surgery and its recovery now than I will in the future, and I have all along felt that having this surgery would be an inevitability at some point in my life.
I wanted to tell you all that this surgery is coming up for me, in part so you know why you will not see me around the next few weeks for those in the Twin Cities, and in part so that you just know this is happening as I know you’ll all want to know of such a significant thing in my life. The surgery is scheduled for January 14th, with a stay in the hospital following it likely lasting the remainder of that week. Following that is a period where I will not be allowed to bear weight on my right foot that lasts between 8-12 weeks, during which time I only intend to really go out of the house for follow up appointments. Doing the surgery in the wintertime is by design, since it is worse weather to be outside anyway the next few months (I mean, I do live in Minnesnowta after all). Full recovery will probably take about a year.
During both the hospital stay and non weight bearing recovery periods I should still be able to be reached by phone/text/FaceTime/email as regularly as I can, and will be looking at Facebook and other social media too, so should be reachable there. We will be posting updates during the procedure and my recovery at this site, and you can sign up to receive updates via email. Feel free to reach out to me anytime during the stages of recovery, though I cannot promise you’ll actually reach me. Once back home I envision a portion of my life getting back to semi-normal, because honestly when you work from home that isn’t too hard, except for the staying on the second floor because I won’t be allowed to bear weight on my right foot at all part.
Anyway, I mainly wanted to just give you that update on my life and give you the chance to pray for me or whatever you feel like doing in support of me during the time of surgery and recovery.
