It's been a little over a month since the doctor cut into my heel and leg, carving off some bone and removing scarred tendon. I posted pictures a week after the surgery when the cast and dressing were changed and again a week later when the stitches came out.
I had lived with the pain in my heel for a couple of decades, but the last year or so, I was beginning to have trouble walking without a limp, and after a couple of miles up and down the beach, the next day I could barely get out of bed, so something had to be done. I had developed a pronounced lump on my heel in a place where whatever I wore — shoes, sandals, slippers — it pressed against that lump, and I'd occasionally break out in a sweat of pure masochistic enjoyment.
Today, the leg is looking pretty good. I still wear the air cast during the day and a soft brace at night to keep from moving too much, particularly because I'm a violent tosser and probably don't spend more than 20 minutes in the same position all night.
In this photo, you can barely see where the cuts were made to the heel and the calf. When I look at them up close, the calf scar is already looking like some of the older ones I have scattered around this ugly carcass upon which the tattered clothes of an aging insignificant stick are strewn.
Here's a close-up of the heel with the incision healing nicely. I count the reminder of 16-17 stitches that pulled the flesh back over where the tendon is reattached to the posts in the reshaped bone. This is the area that gave me the most pain during the entire healing process, particularly for a week after the stitches were removed and I started the contrast baths of 5-10 repetitions of dunking the foot in the hottest water I could stand for two minutes, followed by 30 seconds plunged into ice. That process was fine, but laying in bed at night was unbearable with a sense of yellow jackets and fire ants feasting on the tender flesh around that wound.
The calf wound looks no different than a bramble scratch now, but that's where the doc pulled the muscles apart and inserted something to lengthen the tendon. This was the area I was most worried about because it gave me two opportunities to snap and bury the separated sinew up in my thigh and down around the ankle. It was tight the first week or so, and the scar itched for a week after that, but I haven't felt any pain in the area for more than a month, and I'm now able to start doing exercises while sitting to strengthen the muslces in the foot and get ready to stand up again without crutches or the knee walker and kick some ass in 2010.