Saturday, July 21, 2007

I had the surgery on my ankle on Tuesday, July 17.  The surgery was done at Mercy Hospital. 

Everything went okay.  I have a long cut on my left side of my ankle and a smaller one on my right side.  The pain was pretty great the day of my surgery and the next day.  It's been very mild lately, which is good.  I am able to walk on it with hardly any pain.  My doctor does want me to wear my cam walk for a month, I guess for protection.  I haven't been able to put it in yet because of the swelling.

I think this was a good decision to have the hardware removed.  I haven't felt any pain like I was before from inside my ankle.  All of the pain was from the cuts which will eventually heal up and go away.  I go back to the doctor on August 1 to have the staples taken out.

To see pictures of my ankle during this time, go to the Gallery and look under the Broken Ankle picutures.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

Well, not a lot of gone one with my ankle since my last update.  I've been walking without too much trouble.  I do have pain in my ankle.  For that reason, I'm having the hardware taken out of my ankle.  I've read this this can eliminate most of the pain that I'm feeling.  It's not a great pain, just a nagging pain that doesn't seem to go away.

On July 17, I'll go in for surgery to have the hardware removed.  I've been told that I'll be back to normal relatively quickly.  I'm expecting some swelling and slight pain since they will have to re-open both sides to get to all of the hardware.  

Thursday, December 7, 2006

I went to the doctor today for my monthly checkup for my ankle.  He's now allowing me to walk without my boot indoors.  When I go out, he wants me to wear my boot because of the bad weather.  I'm okay with that since if I were to fall, my boot would be protecting my ankle.  

I've been exercising more but he doesn't want me to walk for exercise.  The front of my ankle is still a bit tight which I guess is to be expected.  I still have swelling by the end of the day but it's a lot better than when I first started walking.  On Wednesday, I walked around the house all day without my boot.  Did some vacuuming and cleaning.  By the time I went to bed, my ankle was aching.

I also noticed that when it get really cold outside (like below 30 degrees) and I go outside, my ankle starts to ache.  I guess it doesn't like the cold.  

I'm going back to work next week for good.  It will kind of be nice to get back into the office even though I didn't mind being at home so much.

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Made the trip to the doctor today.  My mom helped me out.  I was able to stand on my foot with no problem for the X-ray.  The technician remembered me and seemed surprised when I said I would be able to stand on my ankle.  It has been 3 weeks since my last mishap.  So, the X-rays looked good.  

I was given the okay by my doctor to start walking on my foot.  I didn't tell him that I had already been doing that.  I have been putting partial weight on my foot while using my walker for the past week and a half.  I wanted to be able to walk on Sunday for the Steelers' game.

So, I'm using my cane and it's a little slow going, but not too bad.  I usually get a tingling sensation in my heel the first time I stand after I've been sitting for a while.  I'm going into work this next week.  I have training to go through and thought it was a good opportunity to go in for a while. 

The screw on the right side of my leg (I actually have two screws on that side) is coming out more.  I can now see it slightly protruding on my ankle.  It sounds like my doctor would like to screw it back in.  I don't go back to the doctor for another 4 weeks, so I'll find out then. 

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Well, it's been a little over a week since I went to the doctor.  I was told that I can now take my cam walker off and move my ankle around.  That's nice.  I still have to sleep in the thing though.  I've gotten use to it but it will be nice to sleep without it!  I'm also setting my foot on the ground so it can get use to the feeling.  I really want to be walking in 2 more weeks. 

My mom is coming next Saturday to stay the week with me.  Aveek will be out of town.  He's going the first half of the week to New York to see his family and then he has training the second have of the week.  So, my mom is coming up to make sure that everything goes okay with me.  I thought I would be walking by now, but I'm not so it's a good thing she is coming up.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Well, today I made my trip to the doctor.  Today was the fifth week since I had my surgery.  I was kind of hoping for some good news, but the day didn't turn out that way.

We got to the hospital and I did the normal things so that I could get by x-rays taken of my foot.  So, we did the normal sitting on a table with my foot.  To the left - click, to the middle - click, to the right - click.  Well, then they told me that my doctor wanted an x-ray with me standing on my leg.  He wanted it with all my weight on my leg.  I'm not sure what he was thinking.  At this time, I hadn't stood on my left foot in 5 and a half weeks.  So, I told the technician that I would try.  So, they set everything up and with the help of two people, I had to get up on a bench and stand.  So, I'm standing.  It didn't really hurt, but it was just a weird feeling.  I told them that there was NO way that I would be able to stand on my left leg with full weight.  I couldn't get my right leg to move.  It was like -- NO way are we doing this.  So, I'm standing there and I start to cry.  I'm not sure if it was just the emotional situation or what.  So, they leave me to take a picture.  It wasn't quite right so the girl comes back to have me move my foot some.  They leave me again and all of a sudden I start to feel hot and sweaty.  Now, I now from experience that this means I might faint.  So, I say so and they come running out to get me down on the bench to sit.  Then they called in a nurse to help.  They got me on a gunnery and put an IV in me.  So, I was like that for about 20 minutes or so.

After that, I went to my doctor's appointment.  Needless to say, this meant that I wouldn't be walking anytime soon.  He said the bone was healing well, which is good.  But I don't go back for another 3 weeks (November 9)!  I know that I will have to take another x-ray standing on my leg but only with partial weight.  I'm hoping I'm going to be able to walk after the next appointment.  Aveek and I are going to a Steeler's game on Nov. 12.

Monday, October 9, 2006

Well, today was the last day that my nurse came to see me.  This one day was by request of her, otherwise I would have been done last week.  She wanted to make sure that my right side of my leg was healing up okay.  I had some drainage in one of the wounds, so she wanted to make sure it was okay.  It's okay!  We did notice that I don't really have anymore swelling in my leg.  I can actually see the bones in my legs!  Yeah!!  No pain what so ever, which is a little deceiving because I keep forgetting that I can't walk on it.  Otherwise, still working from home and still hopping around everywhere.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Today my physical therapist came and brought the other crutch.  He was showing me how to go in and out of my house from the garage with the crutches.  I'm not sure how people use crutches.  I found it really hard.  I would rather use my walker.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Well, I went out with Aveek to look at a car.  I was able to use the crutches okay to get out of the house into the garage.  Unfortunately, when we got back home and I was coming back into the house, I didn't have good luck.  The step coming into the house is a real pain.  It's a lot higher than a normal step.  It's the one I tripped on in the first place.  So, I'm trying to come back into the house with the crutches.  I was able to hop up to the basement but when I brought the crutches up, I lost my balance and fell face forward.  Luckily, it didn't appear that I hurt my leg, again.  I have a big scratch on my lower arm and my upper part of my arm is bruised.  This is on my left arm.  I guess I was trying to protect my leg with my arm.  

Today was also an itchy day.  My ankle was really itchy.  I think it was because of all the dry skin I have around my wounds.  The scabs are starting to come off and now I'm just being left with the marking of the cuts, which will be with me for the rest of my life.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Today was the last day that my physical therapist came to my house.  I had him take back the crutches after I told him about my fall.  He went down to the basement to make sure that the way I was using my walker to get in and out of the house was safe.  I just feel more stable on the walker.  I also asked him about walking after the doctor okays it.  He thinks I might be using a cane for a little to help balance me.  He told me that I should use the cane in the right hand to keep myself balanced with my bad ankle.  I also asked him about the percentage weight bearing stuff.  I read a lot of places that doctors say to put 25% weight on your leg.  I didn't understand how you can gauge that.  My PT said that they best way to do that is to use a scale.  So, if the doctors says 25% and you weight 200 pounds, then you should use your leg  and press down on the scale until it registers 50 pounds.  Then you just have to learn to put the same amount of weight down.  Not sure how I'm doing to do that with a digital scale, but I guess we'll see what happens.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

I basically stayed in bed all day.  I had my first visit with a nurse.  She took all my vitals and gave me the low down on everything.  This was basically the jest of my day.  Nothing really exciting happened.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Today was the day I fell on my bottom.  I was in the kitchen trying to get my lunch.  I lost my balance at the refrigerator and fell backwards on my butt.  All I could think of was don't hit the leg, don't hit the leg.  After I called Aveek and cried for a bit, I finally got up.  Needless to say, this was the last day that Aveek hasn't made my lunch for me.  After I got back to the couch and relaxed a bit, I called my doctor's office and told them what I did.  So, they wanted me to come in the next day to have it checked out.  That was kind of a good thing because my big old splint was slowing falling off my leg.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Aveek took me to the doctor's office.  I had to get an x-ray before hand to make sure I didn't do anything to my ankle.  Once the x-ray was taken and I got into the office, they took my bandages off.  Aveek was with me when they took everything off.  It looked kind of bad and so he left.  I was feeling fine and then the doctor started pushing on my foot and such.  I started to get hot and felt like I was going to faint.  Luckily, the doctor kept talking to me and eventually I was okay. 

So, everything looked fine with my leg.  So, they put a splint on the back of my leg and foot to keep my foot at a 90 degree (or so) angle and bandaged it up.  This was a lot better.  

Saturday, September 16, 2006 

Today was Aveek's birthday.  Needless to say, the only thing I got him was me coming home.  The surgeon came in early this morning to ask me how I was doing.  And then asked me if I wanted to go home.  Of course, I said 'YES'.  It wasn't that bad being in the hospital but I was just ready to go home and see my kitties.

So, I had another session with physical therapy.  They found out the wrong walker was brought to me so I would have to wait for the right kind of walker to come before I would be able to go home.  They showed me how to climb steps backwards since I have a long row of steps to get to the front door of my house.

Aveek was at the hospital around noon ready to take me home.  Unfortunately, since my walker wasn't there yet, I wouldn't be able to leave.  They did let me get into normal clothes again.  I ended up waiting until around 4pm that day for my new walker to show up.  I was finally able to go home!

I was told to come back to the doctor's in 10 days.

Friday, September 15, 2006

I was pretty much stuck in the hospital so that they could watch me.  I didn't really have much of an appetite this morning because of the surgery.  They gave me some medicine for my stomach and by lunch time I was ready to eat again.  

This was the day that they let me go to physical therapy.  I had to learn to walk with a walker because I won't be able to put any weight on my leg for at least 6 weeks.  I was later told that they give us walkers instead of crutches because it's a lot easier to walk with 5 feet instead of 3.  The walker gives your arms quite a work out, too.  They gave me a loaner walker until I got me.  This was really nice because now I would be able to 'walk' to the restroom on my own.  They were letting me get out of bed some to do this.

My walker came later that night.  They brought me one with wheels.  I didn't really think much about it but found out the next day that this would not work.  I couldn't have wheels on my walker or I would fall.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Today I actually had my surgery.  It was scheduled for around 1:30pm.  I couldn't eat anything for 12 hours before my surgery.  They came to get me around 1pm that day.  Luckily, Aveek had just gone down to get some lunch and he made it back to see me before I went down to surgery.  They took me down in my bed so that they wouldn't have to move me to another bed.  We went down to a waiting area.  It was really cold.  I guess they keep all of the surgery area cool.  They actually had an oven with blankets, so they put a warm blanket on me.  I had to wait about 20 minutes or so.  It was pretty upsetting to me.  This was the first time I had ever had surgery.  They finally took me into the surgery room.  I got onto the table and they put the mask over me.  That's the last thing I remember before the surgery.

The next thing I remember are nurses running around me when I was in the recovery room.  I was very chilled and shaking, so they started putting those warm blanks on me.  They probably put about 7 or 8 because later I had to take them all off.   I'm not really sure how long I was in the recovery room.  Once I woke up and they asked me the standard questions -- what's your name, how old are you -- they took me back to my room and I got to see Aveek.

They had my leg wrapped up pretty good.  I had splints all around my leg and ace bandages around it also.  It was huge!  

I found out after I got back to the room that the surgery took almost 2 hours.  Apparently, the damage was pretty bad. I had four fractures in my leg.  They ended up putting a plate on the left side of my ankle with 6 screws.  I have a long screw going through my ankle and two screws on the right side of my ankle.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

When you are in the hospital, the nurses seem to check on you a lot during the night, so I didn't get a good night's sleep the previous night.  Plus, I'm used to sleeping on my side.  At this time, my ankle wasn't really protected.  I had to keep it straight, so I didn't sleep very well for that reason, either.  I wasn't able to get out of bed, so I had to use a bed pan.  Let me say, it's hard to tell your body that it's okay to use the restroom while in bed.

This morning the surgeon and his resident assistant came in to tell me that I did quite a bit of damage to my ankle.  For that reason, they would have to order special equipment to fix my ankle and the equipment would not be in until the next day.  So, I was stuck for another day in the hospital.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Tuesday started out like a normal day.  Aveek and I had gotten back from our week long vacation in Vegas the night before.  I spent most of Tuesday catching up on my email and attending meetings.  I stopped by the store to pick up some groceries and was on my way home around 7pm.  Aveek was already home and helped me unload the groceries that I had.  I was just thinking about getting some dinner and doing my exercises.

 

 As I was going out to get the last two bags of groceries, I some how lost my balance and fell on the step going out of the house to the garage.  The best I can tell is that I lost my balance on my right foot because I had a big bruise on the right side of my right foot.  As I slowly turned to sit and not be facing forward on the concrete, I started to feel hot and sweaty.  I also felt like I had to throw up.  I never had those feelings before; of course, I have never broken a bone before, either. 

 About that time, Aveek came over and asked me what happened.  I just sat there on the garage floor for a little bit and then looked at my left leg.  It was obvious (at least to me) that something wasn't right.  It looked like my leg bone was knocked out of the socket.  Of course, Aveek looks at and says that he doesn't see any difference between my ankles.  Now, be aware, small, thin ankles run in my family, so it was obvious that something was wrong.  My foot began to swell up.

 So, Aveek helped me to a chair just inside out basement and we called our doctor.  He said put ice on it and go to the emergency room.  So, here I am, trying to get to the car without putting any weight on my left foot.  Not an easy task.  Luckily, we were able to get a wheelchair once we got to the ER.

 I have been to the ER twice before in my life.  Once when my family was in a car wreck and I cracked open my head.  I had to have stitches.  The second time was when I burned my thumb while I was working at the Feed Store.  So, the pain in my leg wasn't too great probably because I had ice on it and it was getting numb.  So, we did all the paperwork and then they took me to get x-rays done on my ankle.

 

 They then took me to one of the rooms in the ER and had me get up on the bed.  The doctor came in and said that I had dislocated my ankle and they would have to reset it.  She also mentioned that it looked like I broke some of the bones and that I would probably have to have surgery.  So, of course, the means I have to get into the appropriate hospital attire.  You know, those wonderful gowns that open in the back.  So, after I get into the gown, they put an IV in me, which is fun in itself.  Besides having small ankles, I also have small veins.  So, after a few checks, they get the IV in my arm and give me the medicine so that I won't feel them putting my ankle back in place. 

After they reset my leg, the doctor tells me that I will have surgery probably the next day.  For that reason, I needed to be admitted to the hospital.  Now, this was the first time that I had ever had to stay in a hospital.  So, they took me up to my room while Aveek came back home to get me some stuff for the visit.