I've been wearing sneakers for most of the day - hooray! Once I eased them past the incision site they felt pretty good, although it also felt good to take them off. I can tell my foot was starting to swell again.
But it seems I've forgotten how to walk normally. I've grown accustomed to being sightly off balance, because none of my regular shoes had soles the same height as the wooden sole on the surgical shoe I wore for a month. Now that both soles are the same thickness, I've actually lost my balance a couple of times - haven't fallen, but it's a little disconcerting. I feel like all my muscles are out of alignment - they're either overdeveloped or atrophied - and I can't manage a normal stride even when I really concentrate. My foot doesn't hurt when I walk, but I feel like I've been reprogrammed and can't snap out of it. After counting the minutes until I could wear shoes, it actually felt like a relief to go back to the familiarity of the velcro shoe, and I certainly wasn't expecting that! Will this get better on its own, or will I need physical therapy?
The other alarming thing was that when I took the sneaker off I saw that my bit toe seemed to be angling in toward my other toes like it was before the surgery. After a couple of hours it looks more straight again. I guess it was just leftover pressure from the sneaker, but I felt pretty disheartened for a few minutes there. Has anyone else experienced this when they started wearing shoes again?
I feel like I've done nothing but ask questions since finding this board, but it's so great to be in touch with people going through the same thing. My doctor prepared me pretty well for the actual surgery, but I'm clueless about what's normal for the various stages of recovery, and I don't want to call him about every little thing. I appreciate the way people share experiences around here - it kind of normalizes the whole process.
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