Tidbits

[cjsmith]

indyansel, I don't believe this! They're awesome! They arrived in styrofoam with an ice pack. And you knew I liked dark! How'd you know/remember that??

apparentparadox, that pillow thing is a GODSEND. I used it all day yesterday and I'm using it now.

The long-acting local is definitely all gone now. It's interesting learning how to get around without letting either forefoot touch ANYTHING. I am realizing how much easier things would be with one good leg, particularly in the bathroom. But I'm still glad I don't have to go through surgery twice!

I suspect, as ouchy as this is, that I have it easy in the post-surgical pain department. After all, at the bottom of the incision just coincidentally happens to be a spot where I don't have a nerve any more.

Since the local's worn off I can feel my toes... most of them. On each foot there is a spot I will never feel again, and let me just say right now that is the weirdest sensation I have experienced in thirty-seven years on this earth. It's not half so freaky when I know it's an anaesthetic. This is ME; this is how my body is, forever. A local is also, somehow, not quite as complete a loss of sensation. I touch these toes with my fingers and it's like they're not there at all. Someone substituted plastic toes. Except that the other side of each toe is there. At that point my brain segfaults. It simply cannot make sense of the input it is getting.

For some reason I am still thinking of all this as a grand adventure.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Wow - maybe other nerves took over the job? I have no idea how this all works!

Your description of the numb area is exactly what I'm going through. My fingertips feel that I'm touching something, and I can see that my fintertips are touching my toes, but unless I push hard enough to move the toes (and thus trigger surgical-incision-pain) my foot has NO sensation that it is being touched in that spot.

I wouldn't be surprised if my numb area gets a bit smaller over time, too. I've already had it happen (though it took well over a decade) in one damaged spot on my hand. Current medical thinking seems to be that peripheral nerves can indeed regenerate to some extent. Obviously I won't regenerate a full third interdigital nerve bundle, but I might get a few new tendrils over the course of the rest of my life. Who knows? :-)