These boots are made for walkin'...

As usual, I've been remiss in updating this blog. For a little over two weeks, I've been walking around in my mountaineering boots, not using my big Darth boot at all!



Today I went in for a minor surgery to remove the syndesmotic screw, the large screw that connected the lower ends of my tibia and fibula together. If you like the big words (fun!), the screw had been put in place to stabilize the distal tibiofibular syndesmosis - the tough fibrous connection that holds the distal ends of the tibia and fibula together.

We had hoped, one, that the screw would come out easily and in one piece and, two, that we wouldn't have to replace it with any other hardware. Neither of these quite worked out. The screw had broken about 3/8 inch from one end and so needed to be pulled out from both sides, meaning small incisions had to be made on both sides of my ankle. In addition, my surgeon decided to replace the screw with a "tightrope" system that holds my fibula in place against (basically) my tibia, but allows the two to move in relation to one another.

Some more info can be found online about Ankle Tighrope Syndesmosis Fixation. I'm not sure if that link describes the exact system used by my doc, but it makes the whole thing pretty clear and will certainly give you a better idea of what was done than I could accomplish here. Of particular interest, check the Rationale and Surgical Technique tabs on the left side.

All in all, I feel okay now, several hours after surgery. Of course, I'm on some pretty good pain drugs which always helps! I was able, though, to hobble in from the car without much trouble. I am, however, and despite the title of this post, back in my Darth boot for the rest of this week. Ugh.

All for now, I'm off to nap. G'nite!

I'M WALKING!

I'm sorry that I've neglected this blog in recent weeks.

It's because I'VE BEEN WALKING!

So I went to the doc a week and a half ago, and he checked over my feet and ankles real well and then had me stand up (barefooted!).

He looked up and said "Well, this is the first time I've ever seen you standing. Congratulations!"

All good, so he okays me moving from the Darth boot into a standard hiking boot on my left foot ("Since you work at REI, I know you have hiking boots, right?" well yeah, maybe a pair or two...). The right foot stays in the Darth boot, but I can begin putting weight on it. I'll need to leave the knee scooter behind and start using crutches.

My doc's assistant walks in and says "Huh, you're taller than I thought you were.." Again, first time she'd seen me standing up.

So I went to PT the next day, and took sneakers along with me so that I could ride the recumbent bike more easily. After ten minutes on the bike, I walked over to the hip sled/leg press.

Walked.

In my sneakers.

Yikes!

My physical therapist looked and me and asked "WHAT are you doing?"

Um, walking?

"Are you supposed to be doing that yet?"

Um, probably not...

"Does it hurt?"

Nope.

"Well, you've got two choices. You can lose the boot, and use crutches. Or you can keep using the boot, and not bother with crutches."

This is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. No crutches for me!

I okayed this with the doc by phone and so now I'm up and about!

I can't walk quickly. And mom says it always looks like it hurts when I walk, but that's just because I have to take awkward steps with the Darth boot.

Like before, the biggest problem is one of blood flow. After a day at work, even when I try to keep my foot up as much as possible, I come home with a sore and swollen ankle. But its not going to get better unless I use it. And I'm so glad to be walking, I'm happy to put up with sore and swollen!

The Knee Scooter

So the first knee scooter I got was quite well made, and brand new, but not really that well designed. The front wheels were essentially on casters, which made it very easy to turn around in tight areas like an office. Unfortunately, these same casters made it turn downhill whenever I rolled across something that was the least bit sloped.

Like a sidewalk.

You know how sidewalks are canted just a bit to cause rain water to run off? Well, pushing down a sidewalk always ended with a drift to one side - into the curb or grass or parking lot or whatever was next to the sidewalk.

In general, I'd have to say that drifting towards a parking lot is not good.

The casters also meant that turning required me to reach out with my left leg to pull or push me in the direction I wanted to go. Since my left leg is still healing and in a boot, this was not exactly optimal.

And so I search and searched for one that actually steered. (This is what several friends had recommended to begin with, but the medical supply company I'd been getting everything from didn't have any.) I couldn't locate any in the greater Tacoma area. None. The one company that stocked them, but had them all rented out, is actually based in Bellevue, and they had some in their Bellevue location. So off I went.

I ended up convincing them to give me the one really cool one they had available. They actually had to drive it out from the warehouse for me. Totally worth it!

Day 59: Cast Free!

Visit to the doc today and now I'm cast free! I'm now allowed to fully weight my left ankle and to start physical therapy on my right ankle. Yippee!

My doc also said that the knot at the top of my left Achilles wasn't serious. I had probably strained my muscle or tendon when I fell, but hadn't done any significant damage. Also yippee!

Since I can weight my left ankle, I can now get rid of the wheel chair and move to a knee scooter. Fun fun!

More soon...

Day 57: After a week of work

So I've finished a week of physical therapy, and a week back at work. Physical therapy has been okay so far. Since I can't put any weight on my ankle, it's mostly been stretching and core exercises (working glutes, quads, hip flexors, abs, etc.) so that I'll have the strength to walk once I reach that point.

I, of course, have home exercises to do, and I've been doing about twice as many as suggested. Any lack of recovery won't be from lack of trying on my part!

The only item of concern so far is that my Achilles has been extremely swollen (two to three times as wide as normal). My physio was able to get some of the swelling down with ultrasound and massage, and that allowed us to see and feel a knot right at the junction of my calf muscles and my Achilles. Looks like I must have injured it at some point. I just hope it isn't injured too badly!

Day 51: Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to work I go...

Off to work tomorrow. I'll be working 5 hours shifts for the next couple weeks. And obviously I'll have to keep my right foot elevated all day every day. But finally back to work!

Day 46 - One Cast Down, or Out of the Cast and Into the Boot

So I had an appointment with my doc yesterday, and my left ankle is now out of a cast! Instead, it's all immobilized in this big black boot/splint. It's still not supposed to be weight bearing, but least now I can wash my leg and stretch my ankle. I will hopefully start physical therapy this week.

My right ankle is in a new RED cast (Go State!) and will be for another two weeks.

I didn't have new x-rays taken, but my doc pushed and poked and prodded my ankles pretty thoroughly and we didn't find any pain. This apparently indicates that the bones are healing well.

I expect my left ankle will remain in the boot for two to four weeks, and then move to a splint. My right ankle will remain in its cast for another two weeks and then be put into a boot where it will remain for two to four weeks.

Blood flow out of my right ankle remains an issue. Every time I hobble around on my walker, I look down to see purple toes. But it's improving, and I hope to be returning to work before too long.





The new boot is this heavy plastic footbed, with aluminum stays up the side, and a big neoprene wrap and six straps to keep my foot and ankle in place. I was trying to describe it to somebody and said: "it's sorta like Darth Vader meets neoprene." Now I'm jokingly referring to it as my "Darth boot". (You'll notice that I put in an orange Superfeet footbed, which looks a little silly but makes the boot much more comfortable.)

Day 35 - Same ol', same ol'

Nothing new to report. Still concentrating on keeping my foot up. Blood flow out of my ankle is improving, but only little by little. Still a long way to go.

My dad left on Thursday. He's returned home to take care of things there for a couple weeks, and will be coming back out later in September. My mom, ever the trooper, is still here. Don't know what I would do without them!

X-rays after second surgery

Finally able to upload the x-rays after my second surgery. I think the only new hardware is the long screw that is connecting by tibia and fibula. With some luck, this will be removed in about 12 weeks, once my ankle stabilizes.

Day 27 - Orthopedics Appt.

Back to the doc today. Everything looking good, so the final sutures were removed from the outside of my right ankle and replaced by steri-strips. My right ankle was put in a cast rather than back into a splint, and it will probably be there for a month.



Swelling is so far down it actually looks like my foot again! As always, surprising how far my leg has atrophied.



This was right after the sutures were removed, and before the incision was steri-stripped. Looks SO much better than it did 3 weeks ago!



So now I've got two casts - my left is in sort of a burgundy/cabernet/merlot color and the right is in blaze freakin' fluorescent orange. (Really, the orange is crazy bright. The photo doesn't begin to do it justice.)

Why So Elevated?

When I did all this damage to my right I ankle, I managed, thankfully, not to do any serious damage to the major veins and arteries in my ankle. No blood spurting from the wound or anything like that. Instead my tibia just shredded a tendon on its way out of my leg.

While I didn't damage the big vessels, I did wreak absolute havoc on all the small veins and lymph vessels all around my ankle. This means that blood gets down to my ankle okay, but doesn't get pumped back up very efficiently. Apparently this will take care of itself over the next six months or so, and will be much improved once I'm able to start flexing the ankle and working the muscles.

In the meantime, however, whenever my right foot is down, it fills with blood. If I leave it down for long (more than a couple minutes), it ends up turning a pretty dark shade of red and swelling noticeably and painfully. Only solution for now is to keep it elevated at or above the level of my heart. This is fine when I'm at home, thanks to a super comfy travel recliner I borrowed from some friends (it had proven its worth helping them recover from surgeries and injuries). But it is pretty darn difficult anywhere else.

First Post-Op Appointment after Second Surgery

Went in today for my first post-op appointment after the second surgery (which was 6 days ago, last Tuesday). Things continue to progress well, although the x-rays showed that there are still some tiny, tiny bone fragments scattered through the tissue under my fibula.

What had the most impact on me, however, was how my surgeon described my injury. He has used the words "devastating injury" when describing it all to my parents, but he's never been quite that emphatic when talking with me. Today, when I was asking questions about the blood flow out of my ankle, he got right to the point.

He said something to the effect of: look, you came close to ripping your foot completely off. If you weren't young and healthy, you might have lost the foot, all the tissue there is extremely damaged....

gulp.

Oh.

I mean, I knew I had really done a number on my ankle. It can never be good to see bone sticking through your skin. And I knew I really sorta shattered the end of my fibula, which is why I've got the plate and all the screws.

But when your surgeon paints the picture that your foot was half off, that's something else entirely.

gulp.

Anyway, moving on, things seem to be progressing fine. As you can see below, swelling is way down, incisions seem to be healing well, so now we're just waiting for the bones to heal.


My foot is finally recognizable as my long and bony foot. No longer a balloon stuck on the end of my leg.


For the second surgery, the new incision was actually made right through the old incision. Looks so different without all the swelling!


The second surgery didn't include any work on the inside of my ankle. It's hard to tell from this photo, but the incision here from the first surgery is now practically smooth with the surface of my skin. I was afraid I was going to have a thick ropy scar, but that doesn't look to be the case.

The second surgery did confirm that the large chunk of bone visible in the CT scan, near the end of my fibula, was in fact the chunk that was missing from the end of my tibia.

Look at your own ankle and imagine this: a piece of bone, about 2/3 the size of a dice cube, was broken off from the back of your inside ankle bone (the rear of the tibia) and driven around and across the front of the ankle until it came to rest adjacent to the front of your outside ankle bone (the front of the fibula). Crazy huh?

But the piece was pretty badly mangled, and the cartilage left on it was badly damaged, so my surgeon elected to discard it rather than try to put it back in place because of all the risks that would incur.


Look Ma, two ankles! This is the first time I've seen both ankles in two and half weeks. With both legs down, so that you had something to compare it to, it was amazing to watch my right foot and ankle swell and change color as the blood drained into it and didn't get pumped back out. You can see this in the photo above, but it doesn't quite do it justice.  It was also amazing to be able to watch my foot and ankle literally drain, once I elevated the foot.  More on this in another post soon.


My poor calve muscles are so atrophied. (And I'm told I haven't seen anything yet. Ugh.) But at least the gashes on my shin are healing up well.

So that's all for now.  I'm back to laying back with my feet above the level of my heart.  I've heard that PT is hell, but right now I can't wait.  All this laying around helpless is killing me!

More about surgery

So my surgery was at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. But the folks in my surgeon's office insisted (I called twice) that I not eat or drink after midnight. I should have mentioned to them that this would almost certainly lead to a migraine, maybe they would have relented a bit. But I didn't.

And, boy howdy (as my cousin Jonathan would say), did I end up with a migraine. Wicked pain, light sensitivity and nausea. Laying on a bed in pre-surgery, covered by a stupid hospital gown, with both feet in casts, shivering cold and yet drenched in sweat from the migraine...and dry heaving. If that's not fun, I don't know what is!

Anyway, learn from my mistake: if there's a reason why you shouldn't fast for more than the 6 or 8 hours that the anesthesiologists actually need you to, let folks know. Maybe your experience will be a little happier.

Second Surgery

So the second surgery on my right ankle was Tuesday evening. It apparently went quite well.

It's my understanding that I had a long conversation with my surgeon about it that night. Unfortunately, I was still all doped up and don't remember any of it. Lucky for me, my surgeon realized that I wouldn't remember a thing so he also talked with my folks at length. As I wrote above, surgery apparently went quite well.

The large bone fragment did, in fact, turn out to be a piece from the end of my tibia. I'm still amazed that it ended up on the other side of my ankle below my fibula. It was too badly damaged to reattach to my tibia, however, so it was simply removed.

A large screw was also inserted to connect the lower ends of my tibia and fibula. This stabilizes the ankle by providing a secure channel for the talus, or top ankle bone. It does, however, limit the range of motion of your ankle pretty severely. The plan is to remove this screw in about 12 weeks, after the tendons and ligaments in my ankle have had a chance to heal.

I was pretty out of it when I got home, and in a fair amount of pain yesterday morning. That seems to have resolved itself, and now I'm back in the land of trying to keep my ankles elevated as much and as often as possible.

Stories from the ER

So once I got rolled into the ER and slid from the ambulance gurney to the hospital bed, they determine pretty quickly that i didn't need to be on the backboard, so I was untaped and unstrapped and the backboard was removed.

Two funny things happened in the ER. Shortly after I arrived, as things were just about to get underway, a woman comes into my room and exclaims "Oh, that's awesome!" She was, of course, commenting on my compound fracture, and it turns out she was one of my ER nurses. Always good to be in the hands of someone enthusiastic about their job!

Later I heard somebody come in the room, but they didn't come up to the head of the bed. I lifted my head and looked around to see two paramedics checking out my compound fracture. It was a little disconcerting; I'm not sure you really want to be the freak that the other paramedics are coming to check out.

For what it's worth, the folks in the ER at Overlake were top notch. While I certainly hope to never be there again, it was a good place to end up after my fall.

Third Appointment

Had my third appointment with my surgeon today. Swelling has gone down enough that I will go into surgery on Tuesday as planned. Had one more small blister de-roofed (?) and sutures removed from both sides of my ankle.

Asked about my left ankle, and learned that it will probably be in a cast for another 5 weeks. Somehow I didn't think it would be nearly that long. Yikes.

Anyway, as you can see, the swelling really has gone down, my foot has even started to resemble a foot again.


In some ways, now that the swelling has gone down, the sutures stand out even more.




Around the back of my leg, I'm amazed at how close together the incisions are.


I'm also amazed at how much my calf has atrophied already. Hard to imagine what it will be like after another 6+ weeks in a cast!



And then the sutures were pulled. Seems amazingly soon, but I guess when you know the skin won't be moved because the joint will be splinted, you can remove sutures a great deal sooner. (And of course, they were steri-stripped, so it's not like they're opening anyway.)

Old Proverb

You know that old proverb about crying because you had no shoes until you saw a man who had no feet. Well, life has a way of keeping things in perspective.

I saw a guy in a wheel chair the other day (I suspect that you notice them more when you're in one yourself. Sort of like the car thing where you notice your model of car all over the place once you've purchased it. Anyway...), so I glanced over to see what might have happened to him.

Well, first I noticed that he wasn't wearing any casts.

So I gathered that it must be more of a permanent thing rather than a recent injury.

Then I noticed that he didn't have any legs.

And that he only had one arm.

Which he was using to push himself alongside his wife while she ate ice cream.

I hurt, and my plans for this fall have sure been drastically altered. And if it wasn't for the support being provided by friends and family, I'd really be struggling (thank you thank you thank you!).

But, really, I'm doing just fine.

Updated Second Appointment Post

I finally had a chance to download some photos from yesterdays post-op appointment. I've used them to update the post I made last night, which you can find below.

Sad (but funny) conversation

So right before this all started, I received an order from Superfeet of new replacement insoles. My mom's wondering what she should do with the box, since I won't be needing the insoles any time soon. Ouch.

The Fall

I slid on a 5.9 route while rock climbing in an area called Exit 38, about, oh, say, 38 miles east of Seattle (right off I-90). [If you know your way around Exit-38, I was in the Deception area on Write Off Rock, climbing Knife in the Toaster.]

The face on this part of Write Off Rock is shaped not unlike some sort of exponential growth curve. Starts out at a nice even angle and but just keeps getting a little bit steeper. Well, when I got to the pretty darn steep part, and was something like 7 or 8 feet above my last bolt (and not far from clipping in to the next one right at the top of this steep section), I slipped. Because Write Off Rock is so accessible, much of the face has been polished smooth by countless shoes and chalky hands. One moment I was looking at my next move, then something slipped and, bang, off I went.

Because of the angle of the face I didn't tumble, and I didn't fall away from the rock, and I couldn't push myself away from the rock. I just slid down it.

And I slid and slid.

As I recall, I was more or less spread eagled and constantly trying to latch onto a passing nub. This didn't help.

So my belay partner caught me (thank you!) just like she was supposed to, and after swinging around to face out, I came to a stop maybe 20 feet off the ground (and who knows, it might have only been 8 feet, my perspective was a bit screwy).

My body had that kind of shocky feeling you get when something is really wrong, and I had a kind of dull distant pain in my right ankle. I looked down to see white bone sticking out to the left and my foot hanging limply off to the right. Blood was dripping slowly from somewhere. Ouch.

When I looked down past my ankle, I could see that my belay partner's eyes were as big as saucers. This confirmed for my rattled brain that things really were as bad as they looked.

Some other folks immediately began scurrying around my belay partner. Two other couples (one with kids) had been climbing the wall when we got there and they sprang into action in what seemed to me to be a well oiled machine. The two women were the most medically qualified, one was a nurse practitioner who works as an ER nurse in Portland and the other was a radiologist that practiced at Overlake hospital (where I would end up going later). The dad took the kids on a little hike - I'm afraid that the kids were a little freaked by the whole thing - and the other guy was immediately on the phone calling 911.

If you are ever going to be in a climbing accident, these are the sort of people you want to fall among!

So my belay partner lowered me to these two women who laid me out in the gravel along the trail and positioned my foot in a way that limited the bleeding.

One advantage of climbing in the Deception area at Exit 38, at least if you get injured, is that the Iron Horse trail (a wide gravel trail that used to be a railbed) can be accessed by ambulance.

Since we didn't need to reduce the fracture, and since I wasn't bleeding profusely, we just played a waiting game. I'm sure the ambulance was there relatively quickly. For me, it felt like they took ages.

But finally the paramedics arrived and started packaging me up. My ankle was just now really starting to hurt, but the paramedics had brought along some nice happy pain medications which took care of that pretty quickly. Once my ankle was stabilized in a temporary splint, they I was loaded onto a backboard and then into an ambulance. Riding the bumpy trail in the back of an ambulance was painful enough (even with the nice happy pain meds) so I'm really glad I didn't have to get hiked out in a litter.

I was actually doing remarkably well, between my shock system and the pain meds. Talked and joked with paramedics a fair amount, and even got them to take a photo of me laid out in the ambulance. Isn't the thumbs up cheesy?



(In case you're wondering, yes I've intentionally left names out to protect privacy.)

Second Appointment

So I had my second appointment this morning. Nothing new with the left ankle, although the CT scan from Friday definitely shows the fracture (and it's deeper than i expected). The CT scan also shows that the fracture is ever so slightly displaced. Dr. Idjadi gave me the option of surgery and screws to get it a tiny bit less displaced. He joked that he loves to do surgery, and would be happy to cut me open and screw some bones together. But the risks associated with surgery (many) seem to far outweigh the gains to be made (very small). We agreed that we should just let it continue to heal in the cast, and only consider surgery if things somehow (unlikely) get displaced in the future.



The right ankle is progressing right along. Swelling continues to recede (you can see the wrinkles in my skin that are forming as the swelling goes down). Huge fracture blisters were still present, so Dr. Idjadi de-roofed them (or whatever the fancy name is for cutting off the top of a blister).



We did learn something interesting from the CT scan, however. We thought that the piece of bone that is missing from my right tibia had been left behind on the mountain. Instead, it appears that, during the injury, that piece migrated all the way across my joint and is now sitting near the bottom of my left fibula. This is at least a portion of the bone we were going to inspect and possibly reattach with surgery. Dr. Idjadi has never seen anything quite like this before, nor has anyone else in his office. Great - just what I wanted to be: a journal article.

So part of surgery will be to inspect this larger chunk of bone. If it's not too mangled, we'll probably reopen the inside of my ankle and reattach it to my tibia. This opens another can of worms though, because, when the piece wasn't found during the initial surgery, the tendon or ligament that normally attached to it was re-anchored to the broken end of my tibia. Anyway, no decisions can be made until Dr. Idjadi can look at the fragment and determine where it goes and if it's still useful.



Things look good enough with my right ankle that my surgery has been tentatively scheduled for next Tuesday. Another appointment this Friday will reassess if that remains appropriate.

X-rays after initial surgery

So here's what my foot looked like after the initial surgery. I'll try to point out some specific things another day.

Photos from first post-op appointment

So I went in to the appointment with a camera, and everyone thought I was a little odd. But I'd already asked my paramedic to take a photo of the wound, so asking to and then taking photos here was easy by comparison. Mom got into it and was able to take some photos that I definitely wouldn't have been able to. Without further ado:



This is my very fat swollen right foot. Looks horrid, but much better than last time I saw it, when it was uselessly hanging off to the right. The wispy cotton bits are exactly that - wispy cotton bits, left over from the splinting.



This is the inside of my ankle, where the bone broke through. Turns out that I actually left a portion of my tibia behind on the mountain. Youch.



This is the outside of my ankle. Under these attractive stitches is now a plate a whole bunch of screws holding most of my ankle together.

The wonderful blisters are called fracture blisters and are apparently formed when the skin is asked to stretch more than it really can. In and of themselves, they're not a big deal, but they apparently get infected pretty easily so I'm told that we'll be keeping a close eye on them. Also means I'll be staying on antibiotics for a while.



My lower leg was pretty banged up all the way to the knee. Nothing too serious, but plenty of scabs. If it only it was just this, and not the ankles!



We ended up putting a fiberglass cast (did you know you got color choices now? even paw prints and polka dots! last time I had a cast, admittedly quite a long time ago, this was not an option!) on my left leg and a plaster splint again on right leg. The splint is essentially a three sided cast that is tightly wrapped in heavy-duty ace bandages. The splint can then expand and contract slightly as the joint swells and contracts. In this photo, the plaster splint is drying and Valerie is about to get started with my left cast.

Val is my surgeon's assistant and she is a total bad ass. When she's not doing this, she's a high angle rescue medic. If that doesn't mean anything to you, well, just take my word for it. She's bad ass. She was very amused that we were taking photos. Everybody understood a little better once we explained that my dad isn't here and wants to know what's going on.



And now we're leaving with me patched up. I'm on my way get CT scans of both knees, and to get my very own wheel chair. So much fun and excitement. It was a very long day by the time we were all through.

First Post-Op Appointment

So this has been a simply exhausting day.

First a very long appointment with Dr. Idjadi. Followed by CT scans. Followed by picking up a wheel chair. I now have crutches (can't use right now), a walker (ugh, but way more stable for me than crutches) and a wheel chair. I'm still trying to get used to the idea that i am not going to be independent for quite some time. I don't like it.

The post-op appointment was definitely not as positive as we all would have liked.

My left ankle is definitely broken. Weighed my options, and since I'm more focused on long term recovery than on near term convenience, my left ankle is now in a bright green fiberglass cast. So far, I actually like the protected and secure nature of the cast; we'll see how long that lasts.

News is worse for my right ankle. Not only did I really break it quite badly (a big plate, 10+ screws, several ligament anchors and some tendon repair), but at least one bone fragment that wasn't visible during the surgery is now visible by x-ray. If I recall correctly, its a small part of the fibula, and will need to be screwed back to the main section of the bone.

Additionally the talus (sort of the hinge bone directly beneath your tibia and fibula), should sit in the u-shaped channel created by the tibia and fibula in such a way that it is centered between the tib and fib. Right now, it is definitely not centered.

All this means that I will be going in for additional surgery. Yuck. It will be 10-14 days from now, as I wait for the extensive swelling in my ankle to reduce.

I'm also looking at a tentative, and optimistic timeline of 3 months before I'm tentatively walking again and 6 months before I'm active again. Ouch.

I hope to have some time tomorrow to post more photos, and more about what I learned today. For now, good night.

Two photos

I was able to quickly download a couple photos from my phone this morning. The first was taken by the very cool paramedic, Ty, that was riding in the back with me as I was being driven to the hospital (Thanks Ty!). I took the other the morning I got out of surgery. Ohh, ahh, look at the new splint/cast.

More soon, I'm off to the doctor!

Starting the Blog

So I'm exhausted (Friday morning around 1am) but I can't sleep so I decided to get started on this thing - which has been kicking around in my head from about day 3. I seriously want to return calls messages to folks asking how i'm doing, but we all know that returning calls is something i fail at miserably.

Turns out I fail at it even more miserably when i'm downing pain meds.

Hence the efforts here. I can update one source, and everyone who cares can know. Makes the slacker in me dance with joy.

I'll be posting a bunch more tomorrow, once am able to upload some photos. I will also be going to a my first post-op appointment with my surgeon, so I should learn tons about where we go from here.

Until then, here's the gist.

I was rock climbing at an area known locally as Exit 38, east of Seattle just off I-90.

I fell badly.

More details about the route and the climb and the fall and the fun we had afterwards another time. (I do want to note that we were climbing safely. I can't think of anything we could have done to prevent this from happening. And, trust me, I've been over it in my mind more than once.))

It appears that I managed to break both ankles on the way down. One was pretty catastrophic, with bone sticking out and my foot hanging off at the wrong angle. This required immediate surgery (obviously) and I was rushed quickly to Overlake Hospital in Bellvue.

The other wasn't (mostly) confirmed until the day I left the hospital. At first, i though it was just a little banged up and the muscles were a little strained. We're pretty sure now that there is a small fracture (Which hardly shows on an x-ray) that is preventing me from doing much with my left foot. I'm hoping to learn more about what's wrong, and what I'm going to be doing about it, at my appointment tomorrow.

Fast forward 5 days, and I'm lying inn a hotel bed near my house. Not actually in my house, which not only has stairs, but - most importantly - also has no air conditioning. If you haven't heard, we've got a major heat wave going out here right now and I have no interest in sweating through 100+ degree while immobile with my legs elevated.

Add to it that the heat is pretty darn humid and extremely still (we've actually had Stagnant Air warnings issued by NOAA).

Add to all that, that houses in this part of Washington are simply not designed to deal well with extreme heat, something they've never had much need for.

Last, but definitely not least, add the fact that my gas fireplace is putting off heat even though it is switched off. I'm not sure what the deal is, but the glass front is hot to the touch. As is if it wasn't hot enough inside already. Hope to get this sorted soon, to say the least.

So off to the hotel we go. (Thanks Mom!)

My mom came out to join me Monday. Partly because she can't help NOT helping. Partly because she know that I'm going to need LOTs of help. And mostly just because she's my mom. My dad has stayed home for now, he's taking care of things on the home front so that my mom can be here. I know that he wants to come help so badly that it's nearly killing him, but for now, it's actually easier for me to just have Mom here. Too much confusion if everyone was here; a too many cooks in the kitchen sort of thing. But I'm hoping that he will be coming out here very soon and we're talking about it now.

In case you didn't notice, I'll point it out: my parent's freakin' rock. I love them dearly and do not know what in the world I would do without them.

My current pain level? The awesome folks at OverLake would certainly ask (0 is no pain at all, 10 is the worst you can imagine). I'm somewhere around 3 or 4 right now. Enough that it definitely bothers me. Not so much that I couldn't manage to write all this. I will hopefully be asleep soon and it will be gone entirely for a couple hours.

In any event, that's all for now.

Good night and thanks for coming.