I can't believe it. ANOTHER surgery.

Oh my freaking god. This is unreal.

After a month or so of skating on derby, I noticed a lump on my my right foot, which is my pushing foot. It's about an inch under my pinkie and it's gotten quite large and VERY sore. I have to put 2 callous pads around it and then duct tape my foot just to skate! And after a day of skating, wearing shoes hurts for a day or so. (here is the blog post I talked about it in.)

I made an appointment with my doctor who referred me to a foot guy. It took 6 weeks to get in with him and I finally had that appointment today. The first thing they did was take xrays.

When he brought up the xray, I thought I wouldn't see anything. Maybe the lump would show up, but I didn't think there'd be anything on the bone. I thought my lump was a callous buildup and maybe I'd have to go get it removed, but I didn't think I would see anything on the xray.

Until I looked at it. Whoa. Imagine this. It's my right foot, so I see the 5 main bones running up to my 5 toes. The 4 left ones (big toe and next 3) are all in line, but they are starting to be smooshed from the right side. My left bone (under the big toe) is pretty straight, but the next 3 are all snuggled up together. And then there is a HUGE space where the next bone should be. Look to the right more and you'll see my right sided bone, BENDING in the middle. The bend goes outward and there is a calcium buildup where my lump is (a bunion) and the 'ends' of the bone is what is pushing my other bones to the left. It's obviously deformed.

Here is an image, but it's on the opposite side of my foot. These before and after xrays show the more common condition, which is under the big toe. Mine is under my little toe:



So to fix this, they need to go in and first shave off the calcium buildup. Then they need to BREAK my bone, reposition it and then pin it back together.

Apparently, the condition I have is genetic. It can be exasperated by certain things (as the condition in the xray above can be brought on my high heels) and he said it was the skating that put me over the edge. But my 17 years of snowboarding wasn't any help either, since I was pushing on the same foot edge. He said that I would of eventually had to have this surgery, but it may not have presented itself for years. After a time, it would just keep growing out sideways until I wouldn't be able to stand it anymore.

I have three options:
A) Do nothing. Stop skating when I can't handle the pain anymore. Just live with it until I can't deal with it anymore and then get surgery sometime in future.
B) Get 1/2 the surgery done now. He said he can shave off the bunion and I could live with it until it got bad again. He said skating will most likely just create another bunion immediately, so he suggests if I go with this option, I need to stop skating at the very least.
C). Get the entire surgery done. I'll be off my skates for 6-8 weeks, but I'd be able to walk in the days after surgery.

Heh. It's getting funny at this point.