Tinman,
1) Foot drop makes me cry. Foot drop is one of the most unacceptably needless and entirely preventable bullshit PERMANENT injuries that a boneheaded and thoroughly negligent healthcare worker can allow to happen to some poor unsuspecting patient. It takes a few months for foot drop to set in, but when it does it can never be reversed. I am so sorry that happened to you.
Thanks PD (and Yorkist)
You nailed it PD. The original neurological event was two weeks post surgery (and their solution was yet another epidural steroid lumbar injection, that very day).
But it didn't help. It was right around two months post surgery that I figured out the foot drop
myself --because every time I encountered uneven ground, or even a slight step-up, my foot caught and I did a full on face-plant. Not the greatest thing when recovering from back surgery. If I hadn't complained, insistently, they wouldn't have caught the infection when they did.
When I kept complaining about tripping, they finally scheduled an MRI. The report said: either this guy went out and had more surgery without telling you, or there is infection in his epidural space. That lead to a phone call asking me to report to a lab for immediate blood work to confirm infection, and a call the next day (on a Saturday morning) to show up for surgery in 2 hours ("and plan to stay a week or two").
As you likely know, I know must now wear a brace. It is basically a "L" shape. The horizontal piece is shaped like the sole of my foot and slips into my shoes under the insole. The vertical piece runs up the outside of my leg to just below the knee, and then attaches around the leg with Velcro straps. Ergo, when my leg comes up, so does my foot. After this much time, though there is no prospect for improvement, I am more or less used to it all.
My ballroom dancing days are over, but I am learning to twerk-in-place. So, I've got that working for me
(Sorry for the whining. But it beats screaming)