"Toe"-tally Disgusting

Well, I don't get it, but apparently photos of my broken toes are in high demand. My original thought was that I would post a link to Flickr or something so you wouldn't see them unless you really wanted to, but I'd have to set up accounts and these days I just don't have that kind of time.

So if you don't want to see it...now is the time to leave the page. I'll try to add some space so you have to scroll down and aren't immediately assaulted by the lovely images. If that didn't work and you saw it anyway I apologize. But only sort of, because let's face it...I have to not only look at, but also feel it....and wrap my brain around the fact that there is metal protruding from my body. So. Completely. Disgusting. And bizarre.

I saw the doc yesterday and all is on the right track--the pins will be in for 4 more weeks (UGH!) and then I should be back to normal within a few weeks after that. The pain is very manageable and I'm SO grateful that they gave me this post op sciatic nerve block pump thingy that left my entire right leg numb for 3 days. I could still feel the toes some, but not nearly as much as if I'd hadn't essentially had an epidural in my leg. The pump thingy, by the way, also very bizarre. And my roommate deserves a medal of some sort for not only helping me get around when I had no feeling in my leg, but also for helping me pull the catheter out of my hip when the pump ran dry. That's a quite a story in and of itself, but I have the feeling that I've already crossed way over the TMI line and will have enough respect for us all to just leave it at that.

I genuinely feel like I lost a week of my life to the twighlight zone...who knew that two little toes could cause so much trouble?! HUGE thanks to Amy, Clare, Stephanie, Laura, Tracey, Liz and others who helped me out so much last week...I can't tell you how much I appreciate and love you guys!

OK...so without further ado...

Here's what it looked like the night before surgery:

Here's what I was able to see until yesterday morning:

And here's what I have to look at for the next month:

My co-workers have nicknamed me "The Claw." Nice. Apparently I am as prone to odd nicknames as I am to all the injuries.