24 hours later

Last night around 7PM, the nerve block officially ended and I was greeted with some pretty intense pain in the foot. I was pretty much expecting it to happen, but man oh man it hurt. The pain was really two-fold. There was a lot of pressure in the entire foot, which I'd imagine was from a tight wrap around the foot coupled with the swelling in the foot. Then there was a burning pain right in the toe, where the operation actually took place. I couldn't say which one was worse though as they both were pretty bad, and when combined it was close to unbearable. OK. I'm a wimp.

I was taking the maximum dosage of the painkillers (Hydrocodone & Acetamenaphine combo), but it really didn't seem to help at all. So I sat and tried to get all "embrace the pain" with it. That worked for about 2 minutes, but the rest of night was pretty ugly. Finally, at 1AM I was so wiped out that I was able to fall asleep and slept pretty decently all things considered.

This morning, I woke up to the same burning pain in the toe, but the throbbing pain from the swelling seems to have eased up a little. I have absolutely no appetite, which is causing some nausea, but things are definitely better. It is now 5 hours since my last painkiller and things are tolerable. The nurse told me I wouldn't have to use the crutches today, but that just seems completely insane to me. If I tried to put any weight on the foot, I think I'd fall on my face. So another day of crutches and another day of laying around on the couch. For now, I think I'm just in survival mode for a few days until things start to stabilize.

My wife, Kelly, continues to save my butt by pretty much taking care of everything for me, which isn't easy with the 4 kids and a crippled dad. I'm a lucky guy.