Today is the day!

Today is the day that I say goodbye to the cage. 

I'm all prepped and in my gown

And my pins have been cleaned:

So I'm just waiting for my x-rays. Wish me luck. 

Underneath the dressings

Warning: Not for the faint-hearted.


I currently have a leg infection where my pin sites aren't healing properly. This is what they look like at the moment without the dressings:

This is halfway on my right side. It weeps quite a bit.

Probably the worst is the right top pins by my knees. The Pin has moved so much it's creating a hole in my leg that isn't healing.

This is on the left top pins by my knee. While it doesn't seem so bad from this angle, it's actually making a hole because of the pin on the other side (see above)

This is the middle of my leg on the left. It's probably the best pins out of them all and isn't bleeding much.

So I guess the next step is to see the dr and get on some more drugs and hope for the best. I'm in quite a bit of pain when I walk at the moment because everything heals over and as soon as I walk, it opens all back up.

Never mind though. Just got to keep thinking happy thoughts.

Hairy leg no more!

When I first got fixatored, I hadn't shaved for about 2 weeks and my legs weren't looking too bad. 2 months down the line, however, there's have got a bit hairy...

I wasn't too bothered at first and made a joke about it but in all honesty, it was starting to get me down. Everytime I showed my fixator to someone, I was embarrassed about the amount of leg hair.
Luckily for me, JML came to the rescue with their product 'Finishing Touch'. The JML Finishing Touch is essentially a mini shaver and due to it's small nature and angled head, it's perfect for getting round all the bars and pins in my leg.

Here are the results; 

Not bad huh? I'm really happy. The loss of hair has taken away lots of dead skin and itchiness with it and I can apply cream easier. My leg still feels a bit prickly but no one really feels my leg so as long as it looks clean shaven, I don't care.

Dressings Day; A How To.

When I started this blog, I decided that I wanted it to help anyone else who was about to have (or already had) an external fixation fitted. I talked about dressings day previously but I realised that I hadn't quite explained the process. If you're squeamish (or hate hairy legs), feel free to ignore this post.



 1. Have a shower before you do your dressings.
With a fixator on, you're only allowed to get it wet once a week. In the shower, make sure you use no product on your fixated limb, only let water trickle across it. You can dry the cage with a hairdryer (on a cold setting) or gently with a towel.

Hairy leg alert!

2. Lift all the suckers up.
I'm not really sure of the proper name for these so I'm just going to call them suckers. You need to slide them up carefully away from the dressings. If you lift them and you haven't had a shower, they might stick and be a bit painful to separate, just take it slow. As you can see by the photo below, the dressing looks really gunky but don't worry; yellow, white, red puss is all a good sign. You should only be concerned if the goo is a bright yellow and causes you pain.

Pretty Gross.

3. Remove the dressings.
Next, remove all the dressings and put them into the bag that was included in your dressings kit. Inspect every pin site for sign of infection.

Ew

4. Soak the wipes in 70% alcohol solution and wipe around the pin sites.
If, like me, you have someone do the dressings for you, make sure they use tongs to prevent infection. When wiping the pin sites, make sure not to take off any scabs attached to the skin (unless they fall off naturally) and to wipe around the entry into the sin and the metal. You can use the wipe more than once but when it gets a bit dirty, throw it away and use a new one.

Soak in alcohol solution

Wipe around each site.

5. Make two insertions into the dressings and soak in alcohol.
First, you need to cut the new dressings with sterilized scissor. We general make one cut, halfway up. You then need to soak the new dressings in the alcohol solution.

Gold Toes! Remember to cut your dressings.

6. Wrap the new dressings around the pin sites and push the suckers back down.
Use one dressing for one pin site and wrap it around the metal on the skin as best you can. I'd advise doing all the dressings first and then push the suckers back down as some suckers and pins may overlap. Make sure if you have someone to do the dressings, that they use the tongs provided. If you do the dressings yourself, you can hold the dressings to the skin with your hands.

Pretend you're playing a game of operation.

That's it! You're all done! It's going to sting quite a bit and there's going to be some eye watering moments but overall, it gets better the more you do it. I always watch TV as it's being changed so it keeps my mind distracted from the task in hand. I'd advise not pushing the suckers down all the way to the skin as it gives the wound a bit or breathing space and it won't hurt as much when you take them off later. Remember that your dressings can only be changed once a week or the skin will blister but if you are worried about the colour of the goo, go to your local GP and they will advise you further.

Peace with the Cage

As the time went on, I got brave. I started looking at my cage more and more. I didn't like it but I was going to have to live with it. I couldn't quite look at the pins going into my leg, but I could look at them. My friend knitted me a little Santa and we thought it'd be funny to attach him to my cage to make it look more festive.

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 worst time to fall

On the 8th of December, I was admitted to hospital. I didn't leave until the 24th.
The date I fell was one of the busiest A&E days the hospital had seen in ten years. I was not a priority. Whilst I had decided I wanted the external fixation, I was not operated on until the 18th December. In those ten days I'd had around twenty injections, two blood tests and an IV line; not bad for someone who is terrified of needles.

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.

Ward with the screaming ladies

After my x-rays and resetting, I was put in a hard cast and put on a ward until it was clearer whether I needed surgery or not. I am very frightened of hospitals and the past 24 hours seemed like something out of a horror film, but my situation did not get better. I was put on a ward normally reserved for ladies with dementia. I understand the illness of dementia, I have even wrote a paper on it but nothing could have braced me for the screaming in the nights. The elderly ladies would scream for hours on end, shout the most terrible things and call for their mothers. I'm not afraid to admit that for the first night on the ward, I sat and sobbed.

Eventually, the women were moved or taken home and while the ward grew quieter, it still remained hostile. Visiting hours were strict and not all my friends came to visit. I was 200 miles from my family and frightened. My partners job, while understanding of his situation, was a huge demand and my best friend could only make the morning visiting hours. I was lucky when my father, and later my mother, drove from Wales to see me and stayed past the visiting hours to calm me down.

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.

My blog name is not a typo

My name is Angharad, I'm 22 and I have an external fixator on my leg. I've made this blog for not only myself but for anyone else who wants to know what it's like having a fixation and for those who currently have or are getting one.

First I'll explain how I ended up in this situation.

Not my x-ray but like this.

I love Ice Hockey. I love watching it and I love my team, the Sheffield Steelers. On the 8th of December, after a devastating loss against the Edinburgh Capitals, the Steelers invited the fans onto the ice to skate with the players. I'm not the most confident of skaters but I knew if I held onto the side, I'd be able to meet my favourite players. No doubt, you can guess what happened... I hit a bad patch of ice and wobbled. I fell one way and to try stop myself falling, I banked all my weight to the opposite side and fell. The next thing I remember is lying on the ice screaming, surrounded by the staff and a few players from my beloved team. I was lifted onto a stretcher and lifted off the ice where an ambulance was called. Lying on the stretcher, I was assured it was just a sprain but I knew from the way my foot flopped to the side that it was most definitely broken. My friends came to my side, along with player Tyler Michel, and stayed with me. I was given gas and air and screamed as they took my ice skate off. I was lifted into an ambulance, my friend and housemate Ellie at my side and given morphine. Later on, my fiancee, came to the hospital as I was x-rayed to reveal a broken tibia and fibula bone.