I think I’ve been trying to be a bit of a hero and clearly haven’t considered the fact that I might have seriously injured my ankle!? Oops…. I had brought up my concerns with my GP a few weeks ago but he just told me to keep an eye on it and thought that my ankle is likely just sprained as I am now climbing stairs/walking more.
Fast forward to Wednesday evening, after yet another day at work being doped up and a severely swollen foot, I decided enough was enough! I finally called NHS24 at approximately 9pm by the time I got home from work; as I started to have pain in my hip replacement/scar area and noticed that the ankle pain was causing me to walk differently.
I’ve also been told to watch out for similar symptoms now that I am high risk for another DVT and considering ankle pain was now going up my calf, I was concerned it has turned in to something much worse. I received a call back from a nurse straight away who asked me to travel to an out of hours clinic at least 30 minutes away from where I stayed, however I had no idea how to get there. Instead she said she would get one of the on-call doctors to give me a call as soon as possible.
After waiting by the phone most of the evening, come midnight I decided to go to bed; as I just presumed they had forgotten about me. I never anticipated being woken up at 1.30am with an urgent request to go straight to accident and emergency, as he was worried that the ankle pain could be another possible clot, plus he was also concerned that I could have chipped a bone in my foot when I went over it whilst moving furniture in the snow, a few weeks previous.
I was honest with him in regards to the fact it was now almost 2am and the last thing I wanted to do was go to accident and emergency, plus I didn’t have a way of getting to/from hospital at this time of the morning. He seemed to understand where I was coming from and therefore made me promise to not put this off, as it was imperative that I get this looked at/diagnosed, as it could be pretty serious.
I made it to work the next day and fortunately my manager could see how much pain and discomfort I was in and let me leave early to head to accident and emergency. I got there about 5.15pm and some how was seen by triage and through to see a doctor by 6.45pm. He confirmed x-ray for ankle but was concerned about radiation being a female and all that so declined to do one of hip replacement and asked that I be seen by my orthopaedic consultant for this.
By 8.15pm I had my x-ray, bloods taken and been given my results. Firstly no clots – phew! Secondly they think I have a peronial nerve compression which is causing my numbness/pain and lastly no fractures! However, they requested that I wear a super stylish moonboot for 3-5 days to support my ankle – you should of seen me trying to walk on my foot with this huge, heavy thing on my leg, but by day 5, I was a pro! Now just need to wait for appointment with orthopaedic consultant and work at maintaining muscle in leg.
Until next time.
Amytobefree 