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!!!

Tightening the Screws

Yesterday I spent an awful long time in hospital waiting to find out a date when the fixator will be off. I had an 3 lots of x-rays and saw the dressings nurse but I spent the most time waiting to see Mr Dennison. Apparently Mr Dennison is one of the best Orthopaedics for trauma and external fixators.
I was called into see him and he was a lovely gentleman, I felt at ease straight away.

We looked at the x-rays and he explained that whilst the x-ray of my leg straight on looked perfect, the x-ray of that shows the side of my leg doesn't look so good. Basically, the smaller bone that was broken is healing up well but the bigger, shin bone, has come out of place and hasn't healed at all. I was gutted. I suppose I had all my hopes on coming home to Sheffield in March and now it looks like that's not going to happen. When Mr Dennison said that we'd have to move the bone into place, I panicked; I had visions of having my leg reset or another operation, but it just meant that the cage had to be tightened which would push the pins, and the bone, into a better position.

Mr Dennison got out a torque wrench and started tightening the bolts on my cage. It felt a little uncomfortable when he was tightening it but the real pain came when I stood up and my leg crunched the bone together. I was a bit wobbly walking with my crutches but it got easier the more I walked. I went for another x-ray and the difference in my leg was immediate. We could see that the frame was pushing my bones straight so it would heal properly.

My parents asked if they could see the first x-ray taken when I was admitted to hospital. I was so jacked up on morphine at the time so I was curious to see too. The x-ray, however, made me want to be sick. Although my leg was straight, my foot was at a right angle to the left- it was disgusting. Mr Dennison finished off the consultation by saying the fixation will be on for 6 months in a worst case scenario but as I'm young and don't smoke, hopefully it'll be off before then.

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.