Whenever I rotate my ankles to stretch them out, I have always been able to pop a tendon out of place. It has never bothered me and I just assumed all people could do the same thing. Conan noticed me popping it one day and told me that one day I may need to have it repaired, but not until it bothered me. Now, fast forward to six months ago. I was working out at the gym and rolled my ankle twice in my aerobics class. It didn't seem to hurt and I continued to work out. Within a few days, I started to feel some minor pain everytime I would walk down stairs, push down on my parking brake, squat to put the kids shoes on, etc. The pain never went away so, I visited Conan's work and had his attending, Dr. Marcoux, take a look at my foot. Just as Conan thought, my tendon was popping out of place and rubbing against the bone thus causing the pain I was feeling. He suggested I do surgery on my foot now to tighten the tendon (a preventative measure), as opposed to waiting for it to get so painful that they then would have to replace the entire tendon.
I went in yesterday for surgery. We dropped our kiddos off at a friends' house at 6 am and were off to the hospital. The hospital has a policy that family cannot operate on other family members, but Conan was able to be in the operating room during the procedure. I asked him to take some pictures so I could see what they did. Here are some photos...but, if you are at all grossed out by this kind of stuff, then you may not want to scroll down further!!
Dr. Marcoux making the initial incision.
Picture of my loose tendons (the two large white ones). The small white tendon (called an accessory tendon) at the top is apparently uncommon in people. Dr. Marcoux said he sees about two of these on anverage each year. He then likened it to the type of tendons that horses have! hahaha Who knew that I was apparently "part horse" this whole time!?!? Maybe that is why I like to run so much and eat hay! Just kidding!
They used an itty-bitty drill to drill four holes into the bone and then used permanent suture material to attach my tendon to the bone (or something like that! lol) Then they closed it all up!
Dr. M (on the left) and Dr. L (a resident from the Cambridge program back here who
came over to help).
It was a success!
2 comments:
Whoa, I am not squeamish....but ew.
Glad you got it fixed!!
I'm way too sissy for the pictures too but I'm so glad you got it fixed. I hope your recovery has gone well.
Thanks so much for your call. We've had Ryan's family in town for Hazel's blessing so I haven't been on the phone but I'll call soon. We're long past a chat....
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