My left foot procedure was scheduled for January 23rd at 3:30 pm. Chris was able to plan his schedule to be home and drove me to Boulder for the appointment. I was fairly nervous. I'm not a big fan of needles. I don't freak out over them, but I don't like them much either.
As we arrived at the office, the receptionist, Courtney fitted me for a boot that I would get to wear for the next couple of weeks. We had crutches from previous leg issues with the girls that were just barely short enough for me to use, and a friend loaned me her knee scooter. Chris retrieved the crutches from the car as I would need them after the "surgery".
I may have been smiling in the picture below, but we hadn't really begun yet. To get started, Dr. Mazzola drew 25-50 cc's of blood and then put that blood into a centrifuge to spin for 15 minutes. It separated into Platelet Rich Plasma, a concentration that is 4-6 times more rich than the platelets in regular blood. This was saved to be used at the end of the procedure.
I transferred to another room where the Tenex machine was set up. A representative from Tenex came with the machine to help with set up and part of the procedure. I did not find him to be friendly whatsoever. I asked "Greg" to hand me my cell phone before the procedure and he seemed put out. I was not fully sedated, only local. Dr. Mazzola injected anesthetic to create a nerve block in the back of my calf. I didn't like the heavy, tingly feeling it gave. It was like having your foot fall asleep and never stop tingling. (That tingly feeling didn't go away until after 9 pm).
The last needle prick I felt was from the first injection into my heal. Apparently there were a number of these injections to make sure my foot was fully numbed. So grateful, I didn't feel them any more. As Dr. Mazzola was talking about the procedure to Greg (with his assistant Pascal acting as scribe for the entire procedure), he mentioned that he needed a certain blade to make a 4 cm incision into my foot!
I was playing a word game on my phone trying to stay relaxed. "What?" popped out of my mouth. I don't know exactly what I thought, but had been under the impression that this procedure did not involve any cutting.
After finishing his conversation with Greg, Dr. Mazzola nonchalantly comes back to me and asked, "Was that 'What?' in response to the incision?" Well, yeah. I thought all this time they would be using an ultrasound on my heal on the OUTSIDE of my foot to break up the tendon. No. The small ultrasound wand which looked kind of like a itsy bitsy light saber would be inserted inside the incision and the tendon and then would be used to "aerate" the tendon by poking holes in it. MAN!!!!!
I was calling this a procedure up until this point. Now, when you cut me open, it became a surgery.
The light saber treatment only took four minutes, after which Greg packed up his Tenex machine and left. Dr. Mazzola then used a syringe and inserted the PRP back into my foot. He said a number of times, "Just like butter" as he was able to smoothly insert and then remove the needle throughout my tendon.
Every so often I tried to take pictures by holding my phone up over my head, but I didn't get many that actually showed anything. That's Pascal the scribe in the background which makes for an awesome seminary-related experience to share about Joseph Smith translating the plates.
As we finished up, Dr. Mazzola closed my incision with steri-strips, a bandaid, and then a clear plastic covering over the incision. He said to me, "Thanks for being such a good patient." and I asked if that was not normal. He said, "You would be surprised."
Chris returned to the office and Dr. Mazzola gave some instructions and helped me figure out how to walk with my crutches. We left his office shortly after, but Chris left me sitting by the front entrance as he ran back to get the paperwork for a handicap parking pass.
We stopped at King Soopers to drop off a pain prescription. Chris dropped me at home and settled me on to the couch while he drove in to Longmont to take Kristen from her tennis practice to the church for Young Women. I was happy to take the meds as soon as Chris arrived home about an hour later.
When Kristen arrived home from Young Women, she was quick to add a couple of stickers to my boot for decoration.
She was also quick to add this warning to the handy dandy knee scooter with its handy dandy basket.
