Tuesday March 8, 2011 is when I got my stitches out. I was a little worried that this would not feel very well, but wasn't going to let it get me down. I asked the Doctor how many stitches I had on the inside. He said he had to cut through the retinaculum to get to the peroneus longus, and this is the only thing he had to stitch back together on the inside.
The retinaculum, are what I would call, the straps that hold everything together. Kind of like when you have a whole bunch of wires behind your tv and you wrap tape or velcor around them to keep from looking messy. That is how I picture the retinaculum. The photo below shows them in white going across the foot.
From what I have read online, when you have surgery on a torn tendon they open you up and suture the tendon back together. Well, I guess that is not right. What I was told is that they take this instrument and run it along the damaged tendon. This is suppose to stimulate the stem cells in your body to come and fix the tendon with scar tissue. Basically it re-injures that spot so your body notices it again. The doctor said before this instrument got introduced that they use to take a scalpel and poke a whole bunch of tiny holes in the tendon to trigger the stem cells. I guess this new instrument does not add more holes to the tendon. So, there are not any sutures in my peroneus longus. See, you learn something new every day.
When he took the dressing off my foot he noticed down at the bottom it was starting to turn red a little, so he put me on some anti-biotics just to be safe. You can see down at the bottom of my foot how red it is. He pushed on it a little bit, but it wasn't painful, so he said it probably wasn't that big of a deal. You can see my Dad in the background. He has been helping me out big time by taking me to my appointments, among a couple of other things.
I am allowed to move it up and down, but nothing to drastic. It still needs to be elevated most of the time, because it is still swollen quite a bit. Five minutes is the most I can stand on it at a time. Pretty much long enough to go to the bathroom and back.
After he left the nurses came in to remove the stitches. I believe there was 22 or 23 of them. I was a little apprehensive about this , but the nurses kept talking to me to calm me down. She asked me how I was doing at one point. I told her I was fine and if she was going to start taking them out. She said she had already taken out half of them. Once again to my surprise I didn't even feel her take them out. It was awesome, no pain. After they got done they ended up putting long butterfly stitches on for a little added support. Then they sent me on my way.
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