Surgery and Recovery: A true account

What was the issue?

So. I will not try to dance around it, I had accessory navicular and if you think it sounds familiar? You are right! This is a more known issue within the human race! It is where you have an extra bone or piece of cartilage located on the inner side of the foot just above the arch. It is incorporated within the posterior tibial tendon, which attaches in this area. An accessory navicular is congenital (present at birth). I actually had the extra bone but also had cartilage separating the bone so if I had some joints present? I would have totally have been able to move them! 

Buuuuutttt it isn't as pleasant or cool as it may sound. The idea of it moving that is- I learnt I had this after having my extra bone get agitated. I stepped on my foot wrong which had happened to me several times for it to hurt wayyyyy longer than usual. We went to the hospital at 11pm. My mom was convinced I had sprained my ankle and was overreacting- The doctor however was concerned that I have either Fractured my ankle or even broken it! Which was obviously a concern. He had me take an x-ray- not as scary or weird as I would imagine- just not moving as they take a picture with this machine- well it did hurt to put my foot in the positions they needed but it is needed in order to get the X-rays

The reason he thought I had broken/fractured it as he was not a doctor who was well versed in orthopaedics aka he wasn't specialised in bones. The X-ray was very hard for him to understand so he immediately got the Orthopedic (this will be a word repeated several times) Doctors to check them out. I had to wait like an hour- in the cold corridor with my mom at 11pm with my mom's shawl as a blanket. Did I mention I was in a wheelchair? While waiting for them.

It took a bit until the doctor returned with some news. Trust me when I say it was a surprise to learn after I had braced my mind for a fracture that in the foot I had an extra bone! Ignore weird wording- sometimes I dunno how to word shit :p

But the thing is it explained soooo much. I will cover why later! But basically, I had agitated my extra ankle (easiest way to explain it to others so I will use the term here too) and needed to wear a boot- which was very annoying- and I had to wear it whenever I walked. This was officially the start of my medical journey to healing. The Doctors at the hospital- as previously mentioned- were not really specifically orthopaedic Doctors so I was given an appointment for this in an Orthopedic Hospital! It would take a while until it was the day though.

I will remind you this is was an issue I was born with. Apparently, I got it from one of my Aunts and my Grandfather. Yes, this is genetic. So none of u paranoid people should be worrying that you could catch it. However like I mentioned before it explained a lot, as since I had it from birth I had feet issues and muscle issues for years. When I was little, exercising was more of a task than anything and it was overwhelmingly painful in my legs. Running or jumping, jogging or walking, dancing or sport hell anything involving my knees down hurt! 

Of course, my mom got me to the clinic nearby to check my legs out but they just wrote it off as me being young and copying her as she had back issues, I didn't know she had them until years later so that was not true- but how could they know? I was at a hospital when I found out about it, a clinic was where I went as a child when I first started having issues. But as I grew older it did get to be a concern to the point I tried physiotherapy- it just made shit worse. Not to say all physiotherapy is bad but I had to do exercises to stretch my muscles.

Only now do I know that was a bad idea as the extra bones are already stretching them to the point I have weaker muscles that kinda collapsed? so I'm flat-footed. And the good muscles had to work overtime to make up for it so I get a lot of pain from my issues. So stretching them more caused the pain to just spread throughout the leg- I dunno the science behind it I just know it made my thighs hurt too-

So once it spread I just quit the physiotherapy exercises. But at the time I just thought it was because my muscles were not stretched enough, boy was I misinformed until I agitated my ankle. During which the boot I wore was supposed to be on for 11 days but then on the 12th someone accidentally stepped on my foot while at school the day I got to take it off. ¬¬ people am I right? Never looking where they are going. Well, that day I had to go home early as I was in pain.

well, I believe that I have basically covered everything on what the issue basically is! Just know 5% of the population has this but most don't realise as not many people have issues stem from the extra bone. I was unlucky and got it on both feet which were revealed in an MRI (i will talk about that more later)  so even if you have it? very low chance of it being an issue and even lower that it would be on both feet. And lower it would be both! I'm just unlucky in my genetics- which will also be talked about more in another chapter! 

I hope this was informative and not too all over the place. wow i wrote 1008 words-