San Diego Report: Foot Surgery

For the last year I had a lump/bump on the top of my left great toe. It didn't hurt if you pushed on it but it would rub on the top of my dress shoes. This was causing a callous and it was uncomfortable. It took a long time to work my way through the VA health care system to even get an appointment with podiatry. I got the referral appointment from my primary on October 3rd and after visiting with the Dr., he said yes it was something they could fix and it was not a super big deal. Well, he also said he was new and didn't know how to set the follow up appointments in the system but he would have another Dr. help him. I guess that should have been my first red flag. I was going to give it 2 weeks and then call to follow up. Well, on October 15th my Mom passed away and this immediately went to the bottom of my concerns.

I tried to call podiatry the beginning of November but the number the VA has goes right to the appointment line. I was in a yoga study and it was down the hall from podiatry, so I decided to pay them a visit. The very unhelpful lady said that yes I did see one of their Dr.s but he was not in on Wednesday, however he would be in the next day and she would leave a message for him. The following Monday I had not heard back so I called the bad number again and got the main appointment line. They said they could only make an appointment for my primary. Since I had already seen my primary (he gave me the referral) I asked to speak to him ASAP. I got a call back from one of his staff who said that I should call podiatry and proceeded to give me the bad number again.

The following Wednesday, I had yoga, and decided to visit the very unhelpful lady again. She again said the Dr. wasn't in on Wednesday (no shit) and said she would leave a message. I asked for a better number and she gave me her "personal" desk number. I waited till Monday and when I did not hear anything back (are you seeing a pattern) I called Mrs. Unhelpful's number where I received a voice mail asking me to leave a message and then I am promptly disconnected. I went into orbit!!

My Gunny's wife works at the VA for the chief of staff and she got me the Patient Advocates number. I called, left a message, and the ball finally begin rolling. I had to go back to my primary so he could clear me for surgery (even though he gave me the referral). REALLY!!! I called the patient advocate again for some assistance. I received a call from the Chief Surgeon for podiatry who apologized and said he would do my surgery. However I still had to go back to my primary.

He had to shave down the top part of the toe where the bone had grown up and there was some type of gout paste that they cleaned out.

I will say that once I got the surgery date, did the pre-op and went into surgery, the staff was nothing but professional and very competent. I had the surgery on January 28th and today I had the follow up and everything looked good. I am set to have the stitches removed on February 17th.

I guess I was overly optimistic (as usual) and thought that I could be back to work yesterday, when I told this to the Dr. the day of surgery he just kind of looked at me funny and said to wait until I had the follow up. So today I went back to work for a half a day and kind of regretted it. I will say that I did not expect the level of pain, it really hurt!!!!!

Below are some photo's, several of them not foe the week of heart (like "A").

**********WARNING!! GRAPHIC PHOTOS BELOW. DISCRETION IS ADVISED**********

**********警告！下の図の写真。裁量は通告されてい**********