By: Dr. Mindi Dayton

I slept great Wednesday night. I still elevated my leg on one pillow with my foot out of the sheets for the first half of the night, but switched to my side with my foot hanging over the edge of the pillow under the blankets the second half. It felt fine with no pain or weird pressure anywhere.  Thankfully it sounded like I slept much better than our grandsons who were just too excited and overstimulated to sleep well. We heard the younger one, Loxley, continued his Baby Shark concert at 2:00am in the morning!

Thursday was Thanksgiving and POD #3. We had a houseful of family, and it was an absolutely wonderful day.  Thankfully, my husband is a fantastic cook and organizer, and our oldest son is a chef… so we were all in good hands for the Thanksgiving feast.  Everyone else helped by bringing or making something at the house also. I do love making the sides typically but I must admit it was kind of nice not having to do much and I am thankful others took care of all the clean up too.

I was up and down throughout the day with less elevating, but I felt really pretty good overall.  I used the crutches a little, but primarily moved around slowly with weight just on my right heel. I did ice quite a bit in the evening (which I had not felt the need to do much of previously due to continued elevation) as it was feeling a little achy and full as the evening went on because I was up more and elevating less. After icing and taking my regular evening dose of my multi-modal pain regimen, which I have been continuing on the regular schedule, my foot felt better, and I was able to get another good night of sleep.

Friday, POD #4 I took it easy in my chair in the living room again most of the day.  I completed some computer work, watched a few Hallmark Christmas movies, and did some “Black Friday” online shopping. I am a huge Black Friday shopping fan but had to forego that for online shopping this year. My daughters did go out and pick up a few Christmas gifts for people on our list for me.

Throughout the day I found that it was getting easier to rest my full foot on the ground with light pressure and I was gradually becoming able to walk flat footed slowly, rather than just on the heel.  Again, I want to stress this was flat footed, without any pushoff on the front of the foot, and was for very short distances.  I did ice again in the evening as it was feeling just a little full and achy again just prior to my nightly medication dose, but that resolved after the ice and the meds.  My sleep was similar to the night before.

I have been wearing my compression sleeve, which I really think is very helpful and I have been working on ankle range of motion several times throughout the day.

Looking forward to sharing more about the weekend and POD’s 5 and 6 soon.  I will be returning to the office briefly on Monday, and back to clinic on Tuesday so we will see how that goes with wearing my boot and walking more than just slowly shuffling in the house.