I've been struggling for many months on how to bring this up. Bear with me as this has been something I've wanted to do for a while and am now finding the strength to get started.
If you have come here because you are looking for advice on recovering from surgery then you have come to the right place. I have documented 3 years worth of information on Calcaneal Osteotomy and various other things on this blog and now on my Youtube Channel TheFootGal. However, as some of you may know I am only 23 years old at this time. I have so much of my life ahead of me and would like to make a change.
It's been about 6 months if not longer that I've spent wringing my hands about how to make this change. I am very proud of my work here on my blog and I am still extremely passionate on helping people when it comes to recovery. As agonizing as this journey has been it made me into a stronger and better version of myself. I fully believe if we take the hardships inward and use them to strengthen ourselves we can become more humble and honest. I have seen some sides of having a physical disability that I still can not shake nor do I want to. The hard moments are the ones that make you think. They are the moments that change history.
I'd like to help the world see the pain and loneliness that a surgery or injury can bring into someones life. Help people understand how to better help others who may be going through the struggle that is recovery. I've met a handful of people going through recovery and I've noticed they also have some of the same struggles I had. The one that sticks with me the most is the struggle to talk about the pain. Somehow I was able to blog about my experience. I don't think this is that easy for people. I saw the need and I grabbed on full force. I would really want to continue doing that. At this moment in time I still have one (that I know of) surgery to undergo. My journey has not yet come to an end. I do have restored faith that there is an end for me. This was something I had been uncertain about for nearly 2 years. I can finally breathe just a little bit better.
This new found hope has given me the strength that I couldn't find in the last 6 months. I hope if you have been following my story you will continue to do so and I hope if you have just stumbled upon my site that you will see everything I have to offer and not only see a "bank of information" as I sometimes feel I'm treated.
Now if you've gotten this far into the post (thank you) then you will want to know what this "change" is. Well as this blog and this journey have shaped me I would like to continue my online identity on this blog. I have so much more I want to offer the world but none of this would be possible if I hadn't started this blog. I want to start posting comics, art work, knitting, and more personal opinions that don't revolve around a foot surgery. I want to grab my professional identity on here and use it for my continual journey through life. I have mentioned before that I may change the URL to this blog and this was ultimately why. I don't want to be just known for something I couldn't control in my life. I have a future and I'd like to move forward with that.
So from here on out be prepared to experience more of who I am.
Until next time,
Kristy Edgerton
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Monday, May 5, 2014
Monday, September 2, 2013
Nonunion Week 14 | Atrophy and Some Unpleasantness
I've been thinking a lot lately about how I want to approach my blog. I do still want to talk about my foot journey but I've gotten to a weird point where people who will be having the foot surgery will still relate but they will get better sooner than I have.
If you are reading this for tips then know you are at the right place. If you see that I've been on this journey for 3 years then please do not think that you will also be out of luck for 3 years or longer as I am. I am a rare case. My doctors have all said so. "so young" "I'm not sure why" "you are so healthy." I recently went to get my 3rd cast on and stitches removed. I was excited for both. Stitches are very uncomfortable in a cast and due to atrophy (loss of muscle) in my leg the cast had become extremely loose and wiggly causing it to be even more uncomfortable.
The three days before going in, when I started really losing the muscle, I was having a hard time. Of course I knew this was coming. I wish this was my first time and could be naive to the hardest parts of surgery. However, I knew and I posted about it showing how I'd miss my calf muscle. It took me 2 years to get both of my calf muscles back. I only had full calf muscle for 4 months before I was told I'd have to get surgery again.
To those of you who are reading this and haven't had to experience atrophy I will try to help you understand how hard it can be.
If you are reading this for tips then know you are at the right place. If you see that I've been on this journey for 3 years then please do not think that you will also be out of luck for 3 years or longer as I am. I am a rare case. My doctors have all said so. "so young" "I'm not sure why" "you are so healthy." I recently went to get my 3rd cast on and stitches removed. I was excited for both. Stitches are very uncomfortable in a cast and due to atrophy (loss of muscle) in my leg the cast had become extremely loose and wiggly causing it to be even more uncomfortable.
The three days before going in, when I started really losing the muscle, I was having a hard time. Of course I knew this was coming. I wish this was my first time and could be naive to the hardest parts of surgery. However, I knew and I posted about it showing how I'd miss my calf muscle. It took me 2 years to get both of my calf muscles back. I only had full calf muscle for 4 months before I was told I'd have to get surgery again.
To those of you who are reading this and haven't had to experience atrophy I will try to help you understand how hard it can be.
at·ro·phy
ˈatrəfē/
verb
- 2.gradually decline in effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect."her artistic skills atrophied from lack of use"
Here is a picture showing my own atrophy. I am skinny so there isn't a whole lot but muscle to lose. I'm slowly turning into bone. I have to watch my leg waste away to nothing. Then one day I'll have to go through pain and agony and work through the weakness that my leg will have become by then. It's like when you have taken too much time away from the gym; you've become fat and weak. You go to the gym and work out and what happens? You start becoming strong again. The things that come along with that strength are usually tightness, pain, and discomfort.
This is similar to my atrophy however.. this muscle I'm losing is everyday muscle that you can't lose without actually not using it. Ever. It's the muscles you use to walk, stand, sit, squat, pic up things off the ground, etc. The muscle that by nature you need to be a human and move around. I can't use that during the healing so I lose them. Then I have to rebuild later but I haven't been walking, standing, squatting or picking up things off the floor. I've been recovering, healing, resting, and preparing.
It's hard. To know that I am watching myself even in this small area, my calf, waste away to bone. To know that I in a small way am weak. If I tried to walk on this today I probably could but only for a short time. Just like working out you have to slowly build up how much weight you can lift or how many lunges you can do. I'm starting over again. Just like a baby who has never walked before doesn't have the muscles. Each time I go through a surgery like this I lose those muscles. It's hard to watch. It hurts me emotionally. I had to cry for it. I had to accept it. I do accept it. That doesn't change the fact that I'm human. I would like to be able to kick someones ass if needs be.
My doctor told me some honest truth this visit. He said "Kristy, I have to be honest with you. I do not know why this happened. It's so rare and I've never seen it before. If I'm being honest it could have been done differently the first time but it wasn't anything you did."
He isn't saying that my doctor before messed up, just that my case was hard from the start and that my feet alone were a bit rare, which is probably true since my other doctor laughed and said "where did you get these feet?" when he first saw them. But the important part of that was when my doctor now said "..it wasn't anything you did."
He isn't saying that my doctor before messed up, just that my case was hard from the start and that my feet alone were a bit rare, which is probably true since my other doctor laughed and said "where did you get these feet?" when he first saw them. But the important part of that was when my doctor now said "..it wasn't anything you did."
The relief to know that I haven't brought this upon myself is tremendous. You always have to be weary in this kind of situation. On some level you give the doctors the 'O.K' to go and work on you. There is a level of uncertainty when things don't go exactly how they should, which seems to happen a lot in my case. So again if you are here for advice then take the advice that atrophy is hard. That you will have to mourn it but that you have the strength to build it up again in the future. Don't fret and worry that this may happen to you.. because honestly my doctor has done so many of these surgeries and has never seen a case like mine. Ever. So odds are you will be fine! you will heal within a Year and be on your way to running marathons. I do hope you come back to my blog and visit. Or even contact me. I will be trying new things and exploring the world in a new way. I do enjoy success stories though so if you are one I'd love to hear about it.
Until next time,
TheFootGal
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