I got rid of my leg cast yesterday. The good news is that the lesion was not malignant. Even though the cast is gone, I still have about half of my sutures still remaining, and am avoiding putting force on the incision area, which means no driving for yet another week.
Now, I got a chance to look at my toe for the very first time post-surgery, and I almost had an upset stomach. Basically, I was wrong when I mentioned that the incision was only 2cm long. It was actually about 2 inches in length, in the shape of a curve that extended from one end of the toe to the other. As you can see in the illustration, the surgeon removed the circular lesion by making a rectangular incision, but also made 2 additional cuts at the opposite ends to help sew up the incision. A straight line cut would not have held steady. According to him, it was one of the most difficult plastic surgery operations on the bottom part of the big toe, simply because of the lack of available skin and flesh. The incision is called a “Hurricane incision“, with the eye of the hurricane in the center. In his words, the post-surgery toe “looked like it was a gunshot wound”.
I am wearing what they call a “post-op shoe”, which is basically a well-padded protected slipper. Working from home has been a good, albeit boring experience so far. The good thing is that I saved a whole lot of money on gas by switching to telecommuting 😉