Ankle Saga Part II

I keep things brief if I have any intention of ever getting this story down at all. 

So to pick up where I left off. . .

The next day, May 06, Jay was doing a bit better. Pain was still pretty intense but he wasn't as bad as right after surgery. So it was just a day of rest and then getting him up and mobile. He tried crutches first but he was just too weak to handle them. They brought in a walker later and he did much better. Since they established he could get around they were able to clear him to go home. 

He stayed one more night and fought off a fever over night. It went away though so there was no need to be alarmed about it.

 So on Tuesday the 7th he got to come home. It was a process to get him in the van and then out and settled when we got home. Moving was most definitely very difficult for him for the first couple weeks at least. Even using the walker required a lot of effort because he couldn't put any weight on the foot at all. No weight bearing meant he had to hop. He being exhausted still, drugged up, and by no means a little dude, it made for a lot of tiring work to get around.

 Olivia was definitely happy to have Daddy home. I believe at first, she was the only one who would really go near him. You just gotta love this little girl.

It was good for him to be home and I know he was glad to be out of that hospital. I had the awesome job of giving him blood thinner shots twice a day every day. That was exciting. 

Then we enjoyed some Panda Express after several days of limited eating for Jay.

The morning of May 10 we went in for his first post op check up with the surgeon. He got the bandages removed for the first time since surgery. I was so anxious to see what everything looked like. It did look pretty gnarly. 

 Lots of blood soaked bandages as expected.

 The puckering where the stitches were was the craziest to me. I couldn't imagine what the end result was supposed to look like.

 He had the two long incisions on each side of his foot and then two small ones on the top of his foot. You can see the stitches on the top of his foot in the picture above.

 The bruising was pretty insane too. All over his foot and almost up to his knee.

Dr. Haywood came in and checked things out and said everything was looking great.

With the good to go, Jay was on to cast number 1.

 This is Ernie the cast guy. He was super great, like everyone else there.

We got our first view of the post surgery xrays too. Pretty cool if you ask me.

 A plate and 16 screws later and this is what Jay's new ankle looked like.

A cast would not be a cast without some well wishes. This one was hands down the best. Our two most very favorite, awesome missionaries signed it. Elder Eddy and Elder Tuttle. Can't even say how awesome those guys were and how blessed we were to have them in our home so often. I think about them often and we sure miss them.

Elder Philips who was on splits one night signed too. It was the only time we saw him. He was great though.

10 days later on May 20 we were back at the doc to get cast number 1 off. And so the routine began. Cast off, (that is Genevieve another of the awesome staff) 

 x-rays,

Still looking pretty gnarly,

 stitches out this time,

 then cast number 2 on.

This one even got put on by the doc because Ernie wasn't there. Doesn't happen often but Jay was lucky like that. Truthfully though, you can tell he doesn't get a lot of practice these days with casting. Ernie does a lot better. :)

Then 2 weeks later on June 03 cast number 2 came off.

 This was an extra special cast because Zoey's playgroup friends signed it. 

 Still some decent swelling but it was really looking better.

I don't have a picture but next came the red cast, number 3. And so this part of the saga ends. Where we thought things were going to start wrapping up but what was to come, we had no idea. . .