Anesthesia? Bring on the Video Camera.

My dearest readers.  As you have probably read, I've been having this terrible problem with my toe.  It's really been quite a nuisance.  All that pop crack pop crack business was really starting to get old.  I say, it was just not my favorite thing!  So, like I told you in the previous posting, I went to the doctor's to see if he could tell me what the problem was.  He was just a family doctor (I shouldn't say just, but he's no podiatrist.) so he didn't really know what was wrong.  He took x-rays, and referred me to a podiatrist.  So at my appointment with the fabulous Dr. Tom Rogers, I was fully converted to the ways of a specialist.  How wonderful it was to walk into an office, have a fabulously kind old grandpa tell me right off the bat what was wrong with me!

Our dialogue went something like this:

Doc: "It looks like you have a mild form of Reynauds..."
Me: "Why, yes, I do..."
Doc: "Don'tcha just hate a guy that comes in and tells you everything before he even introduces himself... *smirk*"
Me: "*giggle* Uhhh, no I don't hate a guy like that..."
Doc: "Weeellllp looks like you have a neuroma."
Me: "*blank stare*"
Doc: "See when I grab your foot like this? *grabs right foot right around ball of foot* *squeezes unnecessarily hard* *needless to say I squeak out a cry of pain* yeah, imagine that your nerve right there is surrounded by lots of electrical tape that just gets in the way and makes it feel like your toe pops in and out of place..."
Me: "*squeak* ok..." as my toe goes *crack pop crack pop*
       don't worry, readers.
Doc: "You  have a couple options here... we can inject it with steroids, which I don't recommend because they hurt and they don't really work... we can have you wear orthodics, which I don't really recommend either, because the situation won't go away, we'll just be accommodating it... or we can do surgery and remove it.  I don't think you have much choice other than surgery."

The rest of the dialogue is pretty boring, but essentially I went with surgery.  So, a neuroma, folks, is a literally a "tumor of the nerve."

It pretty much looks like that.  The nerve gets irritated between the bones and the ligament and the body sends scar tissue-like stuff to surround it, basically acting like electrical tape to cover up a wire.  When the nerve, no longer the size of a thread, starts getting bigger, it gets even more in the way so the body just sends more and more scar tissue until it eventually gets too big to be anything close to comfortable.

Basically what they have to do is cut a little incision on the top of my foot, cut out the part of my nerve that has the neuroma on it, and then wrap the ends of the nerve in muscle (I don't know why...) and then I heal up! It's a same day surgery, so I'm not too nervous.  However, with my Reynaud's it will take a lot longer to heal, so it's a good thing it's happening in the middle of summer.  One funny thing is that I'll have spot on the bottom of my foot, about the size of a thumb print, that will have absolutely no feeling.  Ever.  Again.

Weird huh?  Oh well, I'd rather have no feeling than a hurt feeling!

I also need to remember to have someone tape me when I come out of anesthesia... my friend Josh and I are going to compare videos.  It should be a good time.  Last time I came out of anesthesia, I hallucinated a lot... so this should be fun! We'll see if I post it on here.  If you're lucky.