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. 

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!!!

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. 

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.