A long saga continues

On October 15th, 2006, I was in a serious motorcycle accident. Although I was ruled to be 0% at fault, I was left with a double compound fracture of my right leg. I spent 10 days in the hospital, undergoing 3 surgeries to put me back together. The orthopedist put a titanium rod in my tibia, and set the fibula to heal on its own. The 6 and 12 month x-rays showed that the bones were starting to heal properly.

By January 2007, I went from a wheel chair, to crutches, to a cane. A month later, I was walking on my own power and finished up with all my physical therapy. I was on my way to recovery. I got back into shape quite quickly (for my injury) by trying to continue with all my normal daily activity, despite my injury.

Over the last several years, I have been working towards living a normal life, despite the pain that I had from walking and working. I've been unable to jog, run, or do anything much more than simply walk from place to place. This summer, I vowed to push through my limitations and do the work that I needed to fix the house, build a playset for the kids, and the things that my family need from me as a father and provider. This new level of work, unfortunately led me to new levels of pain.

I finally asked my doctor about what would lead to me still having pain in my leg from 4 years ago. She recommend that I see an orthopedist to review the case. The x-rays blew me away. The fibula, the bone without the rod, had only partially bridged. This meant that it was not able to carry my full weight, and explain the pain that I had from any strenuous work. I needed surgery

I'll be off my feet for the next 6-8 weeks, while I heal up. And I'll be out of work for 2 weeks. As I only have 9 sick days, I may loose 1/2 days pay, but that's not too bad. Baby #3 is expected in 9 weeks, so we are both hoping that my recovery will be swift. I looked at the situation was that Laura couldn't handle a newborn, 2 toddlers and me at the same time. It was either now or never.

My surgery was schedule for November 9th, this Tuesday. The plan was to remove the bad section of bone and take a bone graph from my tibia to bridge the gap. Steel plates were to hold everything together while it healed. I went in at 9am and was out by 10am.

I woke up at about 1:30. The surgery took quite a bit longer than expected, that is because I was in worse shape that the surgeon or I expected. My fibula was not just partially bridged, it was only partially connected. Even though the two bone sections were connected together, as the orthopedist put it, "they were wiggly". After I heard that, I was glad to have gotten this taken care of.

Thankfully, because of the malunion, there was sufficient scar bone tissue that I didn't need a bone graph from my tibia. He took all the scar tissue, ground it up and stuffed it in the gap after the plates bolted me together. In order to get all this done, he had to strip several muscles aside, which has left me with quite a bit of pain.

The doctor provided me with a rather strong narcotic to dull the pain. Unfortunately, I became violently ill. I could not keep down crackers, let alone the pain medication. The constant nausea was nearly as bad as the pain. After calling the doctor, he prescribed me a lesser pain medication, but I was unable to keep that down as well. As I couldn't even keep down water, I became quite dehydrated.

As of 3pm yesterday, I decided that the most important thing was to get some nutrition and get hydrated. At 3:30 am this morning, I was finally able to keep down a half glass of water and a hand full of crackers. Although the pain came back with a vengeance, I've been feeling quite a bit better, and was able to take some Tylenol with breakfast. Things have been up ever since. Tylenol is not really enough for post-surgery pain, but I'm doing a lot better than yesterday.

Things are beginning to look up and we are both hoping that I'll be back on my feet to help when baby #3 arrives.