Creepy feet

[cjsmith]

In these two photos taken during surgery, you can see how wide my toes are spread. It's clear that it's not just the toes, either -- the metatarsal bones, the long bones of the foot, are also spread apart.

That's not the gross part. Or, well, yeah, but it's nothing new.

There's a ligament that holds the heads of the metatarsals together, and for this surgery mine got cut. (Just between those two. The rest of my metatarsals are still stuck together.) That's why they could move like that. (They needed to move like that, too; the nerve bundle the surgeon had to reach lies at the bottom of the foot.)

That's not the gross part.

That ligament did not get stitched back together and it is not expected to heal. That change is permanent. So now I have feet whose inner bones can spread out more than normal. After I heal up maybe I will be able to take my foot in my hands and move it so it looks like that.

That's just plain creepy. But you can bet I'm going to be fascinated by this capability the instant it doesn't hurt to try.

Comments

[rampling.livejournal.com]

Wow, yeah, creepy and fascinating! Two coolnesses in one! ;)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Heh heh. For extra party-trick coolness, I should practice a faint deep slurpy sound effect, so I can make that noise exactly at the same time as I pull on my foot.

[rampling.livejournal.com]

Penn & Teller would prolly suggest also holding a pre-pierced packet of mayonnaise, ready to squeeze at the appropriate moment. They are such classic geeks!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Squeeze that as I let the foot shrink back up? YECCCCH. Excellent.

All this is sheer speculation, of course. Maybe the tissues around there won't have much give to them.

[rampling.livejournal.com]

I hope it doesn't end up feeling annoyingly weird or floppy or some such irritating type of oddness. Reasonable functionality with optional party-trick features would be best. ;)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

The doctor said there were no contraindications for stuff like running after this type of surgery. Evidently the instability created by severing that one tendon is not significant.