Update on da foot

Hey everybody!  Thanks so much for praying for me and asking about me!

  The main objective of the surgery was successful.  They got my ligaments out and got the new one in.  My doctor, Orjala, said that the ligament that went sideways around the back of my ankle was pretty severely deteriated (sp?) and that the ligament that went sideways around the front of the ankle bone had disintegrated to the point that he could barely find any fibers to pick it out.  They sewed the top of the new ligament onto the bone and tissue and screwed the bottom end of it into the bone.  That's a dissolving screw.  Until that ligament takes a really firm grip it's really important that I don't bear weight on it.  I can bear 25% of my weight on it, which basically means that I don't have to hold the cast up all the time.  If I put my weight on my left leg then i can just rest the right foot on the ground.

  My anesthesiologist, Dr. Boyles, not only put me under general anesthesia but also gave me a nerve block.  I get to keep the nerve block until Monday to help with the pain over the first couple of days of healing.  There's a catheter on the side of my knee that has a little tube running out of it into a medicine pouch that looks just like a bladder, I swear.  I carry the medicine in a little shoulder bag.  I can adjust how many mls an hour I get, but we're trying to keep it pretty low so it will last longer.  All the tubing makes going to the bathroom a little difficult, but I'm managing. :)

  Really the only complication I've had is that I threw up this morning absolutely everything I had put in my mouth since the surgery.  What was weird was it didn't smell at all,  had no stomach acid at all.  This kinda explained why I had been in such pain the whole time--I hadn't ever digested my meds!  I call my anesthesiologist around noon just to check in each day, so we told him how weak I was feeling, how much pain I was in, and how I had thrown up.  He had given me two different prescriptions for pain, one stronger than the other.  He said that the stronger one I had been taking, because it was hurting so bad, can slow down your digestion.  He said that I apparently reacted to it strongly, because it had shut down my digestion completely.  He felt really bad that I hadn't gotten any pain meds.  He had me switch to the lower strength pain med but turn up the the medicine into the nerve block.  I've kept down everything I've eaten since and I can tell that I'm actually getting the pain meds--they make me really sleepy.

  Speaking of which, I'm going to take one now and get to bed.  Love you all!