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
