Good News at last!!

Hey everyone, I have some good news :)

I went to the hospital on the 20th of June and had my x-rays and met up with the consultant to discuss my progress. It was agreed that the bones had meshed together quite well and now was the next part of the process- to slacken the frame off.

(This might be a bit awkward to explain, but I'll try my best.)

Above picture is my leg with my Illizarov Frame. The green arrows point to my rods which are attached to the rings. Basically these are all screwed together to hold the bone steady so it heals straight and everything fuses together as it should.

This is a better look at the rod, you can see the nuts holding the rings straight (meaning the pins hold the bone).

At the hospital, I had these nuts slackened off so the rings are free standing and the bone can freely move.

If you look closely, you can see the nuts aren't screwed down. I remained like this for one week and then had the rods and nuts taken out completely.

I'm now being held together with cable ties. The ties are there mainly for peace of mind as it's a bit unnerving to only have pins in your leg.


We now have to watch my leg and make sure it doesn't bend or move and all being well, the pins will come out on the 9th of July!!!

Dressings Day

Each pin on my leg, goes through the bone and out the other side. As the pin goes in, there's a sucker and underneath the sucker there's a dressing which protects the open wound from infection. These dressings have to be changed and the pin cleaned weekly.

The pin nurse came before I went home to show my mother how to change and clean everything correctly (seeing as I was still in denial about the pins going through the skin). A word to anyone who is having the fixator and is having the dressings changed the first time; it hurts. a lot. Imagine ripping off a scab, the pain is somewhat like that when the dressings are taken off. After the dressings are off, a 70% alcohol solution is applied, which burns, to the leg before new dressings are applied.

The nurse who changed my dressings had no mercy and I screamed as each was changed. She explained to my mother that no matter the noises I made, it's essential to continue the dressing change. Now that I'm looking back and have had four changes, I realise the nurse was in a hurry and that it is less painful if you have a shower before hand to wet the dressings as it makes them easier to take off.

The cage. A metal burden.

When I recovered properly from the operation, the Physiotherapists came to see me and asked to lift back the covers. I agreed that they could life the covers but I did not want to see the cage. I wasn't ready and to be honest, it scared the hell out of me to think that there was metal going through my leg.

My cage after the operation.

It wasn't until the next day, my mother encouraged me to look at the cage. I pulled back the covers and looked at my leg. I wasn't shocked, I wasn't horrified, I wasn't anything. I covered it up again. At the time I didn't realise what I was doing, but I was actually pretending it wasn't my leg. Physio would come and press on my foot and I'd press back, wiggle my toes and flex my leg but still, I couldn't accept that this metal cage would be attached to me for a short period of my life.

I ignored my cage completely.

The operation

On the 18th of December at 3pm, I was wheeled down to operation. Luckily for me, they took my needle phobia into consideration and the anesthetic was administered through a mask. All I remember is going to sleep and waking up in immense pain.

Sexy picture of me taken by my mother.

The worst part about waking up was the compression pillows on my feet. The pillows basically inflate up and down to keep the blood flowing. It was painful because the pillows would squeeze my foot tightly (think like having your blood pressure taken but on your foot) before deflating. Later, when I was recovering, the pillows were put on my feet only at night and they became more of an annoyance rather than painful. 

Vistors

My time in hospital wasn't all doom and gloom. I had a large amount of friends come and visit me. My favourite visitor, however, was Geoff Woolhouse; the netminder for the Sheffield Steelers. Both my father, my partner and my friends were lobbying the Sheffield Steelers for one of the team to come and visit me and I was in a state of shock when he walked in the ward. Geoff signed my team flag and took my jersey away to be signed by all of the team. It was amazing (although I would have preferred to have met him in better circumstances).

I just want to take this post to say thank you to;

Gavin, Philippa, Ellie, Chris, Richard, Tom, Krysia, Louise from archery, Louise from work, Ella, Claire, Andy, Adam Kathy, Paul and my parents 

 for making the effort to visit me in hospital. 

I also want to thank all of the Sheffield Steelers Twitter community for being there throughout to cheer me up. 

The Cage

On Tuesday, 11th December, I decided I wanted the cage. The cage is my name for an external fixation. A doctor came by and explained what had happened to my leg. The break was serve and I had three options:

1.  I can remain in cast and the bones might heal. If the bones healed incorrectly, however, the bones would be re-broken, reset and I would have to review options 2 &3. 
2. I could have my leg plated and pinned. This meant an operated and a plate joining the bones together. Whilst this seems like a good idea, the risk of infection is very high.
3. I could be fitted with an external fixation with pens going through the bone allowing me to weight-bare.

I must admit, I didn't fancy my chances with any of those options and was left to think about it and talk it through with my family. A nurse came by later and introduced me to a woman on the next ward over with a fixation through her ankle. Whilst the fixation looked terrifying, she was walking and she wasn't in pain. It was then that I decided that I would go for option 3, the external fixation.

Resetting the mistakes

After my x-rays, I was wheeled into the fracture clinic into a private bay. I was given shots of morphine and gas and air was placed around my mouth. My partner was told to wait outside and it was explained that in order to put a cast on, the bones would have to be reset. I didn't know what that meant and was a bit hazy on what was happening. The next thing that happened was one of the worst experiences of my life.

To have bones reset means that they will literally manipulate the ends of the broken bone so that they are in a better position. This means they take the bones and crunch them together, hold them and then plaster it. It makes me sick to even think about what happened. I was in agony, I screamed, I lashed out so much that a nurse restrained me and then I passed out. Or I think I passed out because all I rememeber mostly is pain and darkness and screaming.

I wish I could say this process happened only once. I had my bones reset four times in total.