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.

Walking again.

The idea of the external fixation is that you can weight-bare through it straight away. In theory, after my operation, I would've got up and walked away. But life isn't that easy.
Physiotherapy started the day after my operation. I was given a walking frame and had to make my way from the bed to the chair, an easy enough task, so you'd think.

I was in agony lowering my leg from the bed to the floor, the blood rushing to my leg also brought feeling. I was with two physios, each helping me from the bed to the frame. I managed to stand and hobble over to the chair by the side of my bed. Something that would've taken a normal person seconds, took me fifteen minutes. Evey time I bent my leg, a hot pain would rush to my knee and when I tried to walk, my leg wouldn't respond in the way I wanted it to. There were moments where I thought my leg was out in front of my body but in actual fact it was parallel.

I got through my physio with thanks to only my mother. Without her, I would still be stuck in hospital struggling to get up from my bed. My mother devised a system where I would get up and down from my chair five times to earn a gold star. We spent hours in one night on getting just one star, to ease my leg into be bent and straightened over and over. By the time the physiotherapist came the next morning, I could get up with ease.

The next step of my recovery was walking with the walking frame. Like I mentioned above, it was difficult to get my leg to respond and when I wanted to move my foot forward, it would hang limply, not responding. Again all night, we practised walking with the frame, ever so slightly. I'll admit, I cried a lot through my physiotherapy. It hurt every time I moved and to put pressure on the bones was excruciating. When the physio returned the next day, I could walk a short distance with my frame. I was happy and was told I could go home if I progressed to the crutches.

Little did I know that crutches would be my downfall. I hated my crutches right from the start. They didn't support me in the way the walking frame did and the tile floors, to me, seemed slippery. I practised slightly with the crutches but less support from them meant more stress on my leg. Soon, I had blisters on my hands, my arms ached and I cried in pain every time I stood up. My medication was doubled to deal with the pain but done little to help me walk.

At this point, it was two days until Christmas and I desperately wanted to go home. I had to prove to the physiotherapist that I could walk. I grabbed my crutches and screamed inside every step I took but I walked the required length. This was good news, I could manage the length of an average room. The bad news however, there was another task I had to complete before I was allowed home; stairs.

I still don't know how I managed those steps but my determination to go home for Christmas was greater than my pain. I was dismissed from hospital on Christmas eve. 

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.

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.

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.

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.