Appointment at Chelsea & Westminster
I went to see a surgeon (I will call him Mr. R) at Chelsea & Westminster on Monday and it didn't go quite as planned. I went to ask about the possibility of an amputation and he said that he would never offer to amputate before preforming another surgery first. He has offered another operation which I have heard about and my wife has read a little into. It is called a triple arthrodesis which is where they fuse 3 joints in the hind of the foot, being the talocalcaneal, talonavicular, and calcaneocuboid joints. He said that he would also break the heel and the front of the foot and put them in a correct position and then he would straighten and fix the hind of the foot in place with metal pins and plates. He also added that because of how complex my feet are it will be harder to treat.
The recovery is at least a year, with 3 months no weight bearing, and he would only do one foot at a time which means it would be at least 2 years of recovery, and that is a long time and by no means easy for me or my wife. I am seeing him in 9 weeks time to make a decision but he did say that if I decide that I really don't want the triple arthrodesis then he will do the amputation.
I think I will still just go for the amputation. As he said the aim of the operation is to straighten my feet, but there is no guarantee that it will give any pain relief and also it will not help my ankle arthritis, he also added that even if I have it my problems will never go away. That is my main problem, its all the uncertainty. I don't want to faff around with ops which will leave me in the same state or worse and end up having to have a load more operations in the future. Which puts me off it more as I honestly can't be bothered with a life of operations. The only sure way to get rid of the problem is to chop them off. As I have said before I just want to get on with my life.
He seemed glad that I got a referral to Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehamton (where the rehabilitation clinic is) to talk to some people there about recovery, prosthesis and the like at the pre-amputation clinic.
The recovery is at least a year, with 3 months no weight bearing, and he would only do one foot at a time which means it would be at least 2 years of recovery, and that is a long time and by no means easy for me or my wife. I am seeing him in 9 weeks time to make a decision but he did say that if I decide that I really don't want the triple arthrodesis then he will do the amputation.
I think I will still just go for the amputation. As he said the aim of the operation is to straighten my feet, but there is no guarantee that it will give any pain relief and also it will not help my ankle arthritis, he also added that even if I have it my problems will never go away. That is my main problem, its all the uncertainty. I don't want to faff around with ops which will leave me in the same state or worse and end up having to have a load more operations in the future. Which puts me off it more as I honestly can't be bothered with a life of operations. The only sure way to get rid of the problem is to chop them off. As I have said before I just want to get on with my life.
He seemed glad that I got a referral to Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehamton (where the rehabilitation clinic is) to talk to some people there about recovery, prosthesis and the like at the pre-amputation clinic.
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