Round 2

After getting my x-brace and fib fix, I had worked through the worst of my mobility issues. My poor foot wasn't happy about being drug into the mess with big pins driven through it to hold my ankle and bones in place until the tibia could be plated, but the swelling slowly receded.

Surgery round two was scheduled for just over 2 weeks after the first one, to give the blisters time to heal over so he could safely plate the tibia. On Friday, December 30th, my friend again, ever so awesomely, drove me to my surgery. This one was being done at the doctor's normal center, a small outpatient center. I voiced my concerns from my previous experience at the hospital to the anesthesiologist, and we discussed it a bit. I was mildly terrified of a repeat, but I also wanted this leg fixed, so told myself to "suck it up, buttercup" and in we went.

The center here was far more relaxed of an environment, quieter and more relaxing. My blood pressure reading was almost normal, which is unusual for me with a bad case of white-coat syndrome since I was kid. Eventually got moved into the surgical room, and again, once the drugs kicked in my  memory of things is gone until waking up.

Whatever they did here, my post-op recovery was back to "normal" for me. Upon waking up, however, the leg hurt - a lot. I was still pretty out of it, but despite my usual pain tolerance, I was in tears. The doc allowed a nerve block this time though, so once they did that and it kicked in it helped. I've learned that pain meds aren't the evil devil, so accepted that as well until my friend arrived with my prescribed meds.

The erector set was gone, so that was a good start. From my understanding at this point, he plated the end of the tibia, along with some screws to hold the two ends together. Other than micro pieces, the tibia break was one large break, unlike the fibula which had a couple breaks and one large piece in particular that was extra. His biggest concern still seems to be cartilage damage from the tibia break, so I'm guessing that PT won't be much fun once we get to that point.

I was sent home with a soft cast covering nearly my entire foot to just below my knee. I can barely wiggle my toes in it, but it'll also keep my foot from getting crazy swollen like it did with the x-brace (it swelled so bad I got a couple skin blisters and as it went down my skin got all wrinkly. I didn't think toes could get that big).

This one hurt more, but I was glad to finally be set up to work on healing. It's been nearly a month since the original break, and I'm just now in a position to be on the road to recovery. The timelines have started to wear on me realizing that I'm a full month in and am just able to start on healing. 24 hours later the nerve blocks began to wear off, but thankfully the pain, while worse, wasn't intolerable with my current med regime.