I have such a long story that I don’t know where to begin. Many COTHers are already aware of my ongoing left leg issues. As of May 28, 2008 I’d had 10 surgeries involving my left knee/leg. In 2005, during a lateral opening wedge femoral osteotomy, a procedure aimed at opening the lateral joint space in my left knee, the orthopedic surgeon accidently broke my femur (yes, nice compound fracture just above the knee joint) while I was on the table. It was plated and stapled incorrectly and failed to heal for more than a year. After determining that it was a miserable nonunion, bone ends had receded, complete disaster, it was again repaired by a different surgeon and healed rather well. I was plagued by hardware pain, so the hardware ( T-plate, 7 screws and 2 HUGE bone staples) was removed in 2006. The first week or so after the hardware removal was hell, but it was smooth sailing after that. My left knee has no lateral meniscus, only a fraction (much less than half) of the medial meninscus, no ACL, severe damage/arthritis of the articular cartilage, bony changes to the under surface of the patella, patella baja (shortening of the patellar tendon), etc…but I felt like a new woman after the femoral hardware removal. I was in the gym everyday, riding 2-3 horses per day, working like a dog and feeling better than I had in years.
That all changed on May 28, 2008. I was a restrained passenger in a Ford Explorer traveling on Highway 50 from Gunnison, CO toward Denver. I’d been in CO on business and had been working on foals in Gunnison all day and was headed back to the hotel in Denver that I’d been at all week. Because I’d been hard at work all day the left knee was good and aggravated, so I had it propped up and resting on the dash when the Explorer, going about 70 mph, struck a mule deer on the passenger side quarter panel. The passenger side airbag deployed, the mule deer slid up the hood and into the windshield and my left lower leg was caught up in all of the mess. When the airbag “exploded” open it created a third degree burn on the back of my leg. But that was the least of my troubles. It also instantaneously snapped my leg in 2 about 4 inches above my ankle. The deer against the windshield and the force of the airbag behind my leg then crushed the entire lower portion of the leg down to the ankle. Since we were effectively in the middle of nowhere, the ambulance was an hour and half in coming, so I sat in the totaled Explorer holding my mutilated leg together alone (the employee who’d been driving panicked and ran away almost immediately upon impact). To make a very long story a little shorter, I had compartment syndrome and required emergency surgery upon reaching the 24-bed Gunnison hospital. The fasciotomy (fancy term for muscular fillet to allow decompression of tissues) site remained open for 5 days and I was flown to Denver Helath after 3 more surgeries to have the tibia and fibula plated before returning to VA. I had “severely comminuted” fractures of the tibia and fibula, involving the tibial plafond with linear fractures extending into the ankle joint space and 3 separate tibial plateau fractures.
I eventually ended up with another nonunion, hardware failure in the form of multiple broken screws and a bent plate and a raging case of osteomyelitis (MRSA and Staph epi) for good measure. Many more surgeries, picc lines and antibiotics later (had 1/3 of necrotic, infected tibia removed, rod placed, bone grafting, etc…) I’m walking and even riding again. I was nonweightbearing for more than a year, ran total surgeries to left leg up to 18, worked my ass off to get back to where I am and…I’ve just been told the hardware needs to come out and there may be more/continuing infection. The good part here is that doc thinks the tibia is healed enough to hold up without screws and plate. Fibular hardware will be left alone. But I SO don’t want to be laid up again. And, horse related part here, I have a not-so-easy-to-ride, very athletic gelding who I don’t want to have to bring back to work after a vacation again. I’ve had to fight my in-laws saying that I have no business riding b/c I’m lucky to be alive (um, all the more reason to ride in my nsho), I’ve had to literally spill blood, sweat and tears to be where I am now riding wise and overall and I’m just angry that I’ve already spent at least 3 of the last 6 years in a wheelchair or on crutches.
I know I can pay someone to work the horse while I’m laid up and, assuming all goes as planned with the surgery, I’ll fight my way back again, but I’m apprehensive and just annoyed that “here I go again”. Not even going to mention the effect this all has on my 8 year old daughter, husband and other family members. Any suggestions for remaining sane for another procedure and likely another killer course of ab’s? 'Sorry this was so long. I’ll attach some x-ray images just for fun. The first film was taken after pins and an external fixation halo were implemented during my first emergency surgery. No one even bothered to take films of the “disaster area” before the fasciotomy and ex-fix placement.:rolleyes:
OBVIOUS nonunion and hardware failure that my SOB orthopedic here in Charlottesville never saw (or didn’t want to deal with).
The pic with 2 films side by side is a comparison of July, 2008 and November, 2008. Really doc? You couldn’t see the bone recession, excess opacity and other obvious signs of a possibly infected nonunion?
Necrotic bone and contaminated hardware removed, antiobiotic impregnated methylmethacrylate and rod in place.
rod and methylmethacrylate removed, plate and screws implanted. I underwent a 6 week course of IV antibiotics and a 6 week waiting period before reculturing the tibia and finding no bacteria. After the culture the tibia was replated and bone graft was harvested from the top of the same tibia to fill the void left by the methylmethacrylate.
All I can say is…HOLY CRAP.
And all I can offer (which is pretty feeble): visualization. Apparently when Jane Savoie was down and out right before a critical competition, she visualized her ride over and over in her hospital bed (it was in “That Winning Feeling!”). And she claims it made an enormous difference.
And I add this: if you came back from all of that to work with horses, then I would say that that was keeping you going (and keeping you sane). Don’t listen to the relatives - what motivates you is not understandable to them.
:eek::eek::eek:
Ow! Ow! Ow! And I’ll echo Geek’s “Holy crap!”
It’s none of your in-laws’ damned business whether you ride. And you’re a tough person coming back to ride after all that. I shattered my leg about a year ago, 2 plates, 14 screws, and non-weight-bearing for 13 weeks, and I CANNOT imagine the strength you must have to come back after 13X that.
You’ve made it through that much, what’s one more. 
All good thoughts your way for an uneventful surgery and a speedy and complete recovery.
Did you tell your inlaws that no one should be driving, because there are daily wrecks on the highways?:rolleyes:
On the how to endure question, I too, as so many, have some stories to tell.
Not the same situation, because I didn’t have any surgeries or other serious health problems before about hitting 60, so really can’t compare with a young person’s problems.
Since then, it seems that the last 5 years, it has been patch - patch - patch for me also and it is not over, one more surgery awaiting early next year.
I think that we can do just what we can do with what we are given.:yes:
Don’t focus on what is not working, you riding that older horse, but try to manage so he is ridden if that is important, since you can’t help that you won’t be in the saddle.
Don’t let the CANT’S be more than one more management issue, not an emotional one.
As they told me, if I feel a little bit left out of life and have a tought time coping, there is very good medication for that today, no different than taking insulin if you are a diabetic.
Luckily I don’t need any, seem to have been born an eternal optimist, always a glass half full person, but have friends that are on those kinds of medications, don’t feel so strung out by life any more and wonder why they didn’t take something sooner.
I don’t know, maybe you are already on some of those medications, but if not, give this a thought and, if you are in a tough spot emotionally, do get help.
That help seems to be a great relief, not a cop-out, as lay wisdom seems to consider it.
These situations, where you can’t do much, do get old after a while, does it.:no:
Good luck with your next step.
I knew about your accident and all that you went through with that but didn’t know you had already had major leg problems before that. What a mess.
Listen, compared to what you have been through this will be a breeze. You have to do what you have to do. Do it, and get back to the business of healing. This may be a small step backward but there is a lot of ground behind you.
FYI, I use you as a reminder NOT to put your feet on the dash no matter how tempting that may be. I tell everyone, I know this lady…
I grinned ear to ear reading that, Laurie. I hope that many a leg has been saved by my stupid mistake. I cringe when I drive down the road and see feet on dashboards and even feet sticking out the window! :eek: When the $hit hits the fan you really don’t have time to reposition, no matter how agile you are.
Strangely enough, the EMT’s at the scene of the accident told me that the typical “feet on the dash” injuries are different than mine. Apparently what usually happens is the person with their feet up slides forward on impact, feet breaking the windshield. It’s the femur/femurs that usually take the airbag blow, so a clean break to the femur with glass lacerations down below is typical. The mule deer stopped my foot from going through the windshield. There was a little broken glass hole wear my heel hit the glass, but the critter was up against the glass, too so it stopped my forward momentum. And of course the first thing I remember being told about my leg is “You couldn’t have broken it in a worse place as far as chances for healing go.” Um, thanks mule deer. But I guess it turned out worse for her than it did for me. She was nearly unrecognizable after the accident. :no:
Damn. That’s all I have to say.
Sounds like your a trooper, so you’ll definitely be back in the saddle again. I wish you the best of luck.
I’m also blessed with perpetual optimism, Bluey. It is something I am very thankful for everyday. I am on NO medications now, no ibuprofen or Tylenol even. After years and years of knee issues I’ve torn my stomach up with NSAIDS and can’t tolerate them well now. And I was practically catatonic for the better part of a year with an unstabilized, infected broken leg due to massive amounts of narcotics, so I enjoy my current clear headedness immensely. For anyone with a working knowledge of pharmalogicals, at my worst I was on:
100 mcg fentanyl patch
180 mg oxycontin per day
45 mg oxycodone every 4 hours
10 mg valium every 4-6 hours
300 mg neurontin 3 times daily
10 mg ambien at bedtime
I was told that I’d be tapered down to a livable dose of oxycontin that I’d be on long term and I did taper down to that amount and then I quit cold turkey against doctors’ advice. After more than a year on narcotics (it took more than a year to get the fractures stabilized and on their way to healing), stopping was no picnic. I went through a hellacious withdrawal period, complete with hot and cold flashes, sweats and chills, aching bones and teeth, insomnia, fatigue, headaches… And this is another reason I’m dreading hardware removal. I’m told that with my injuries this will be a major undertaking. I’d rather not have to go through the withdrawal again, but my surgeon laughed at me when I asked if no narcotics was an option.
Ah, well, this too shall pass, eh?
I am a surgical tech and I do a lot of Orthopedic surgery and all I can say is OMG. I can’t imagine anyone having such awful luck. It really makes me put things in perspective.
I probably would never have read this, but I’m home from work today because my mare has a nasty laceration on her knee, and I’m feeling like I have the worst luck because I still owe the vet $500 from the last injury I had to have stitched, and for 3 failed attempts at breeding my mare before that. (the last injury occurring the same day they told me my mare was not expecting) I’ve been slowly paying them off in hopes that I would geld my colt as soon as it was paid. And to top it off, I just made arrangements to have this mare leased, so this really couldn’t have come at a worse time. Did I mention that I’m just broke in general? But alas, I’m healthy, my vet is very good to me, and will let me owe them for as long as I can still make payments. And this is just a flesh wound, will be healed up in no time.
Good luck to you, I hope you never have more issues with your bum leg, and I hope you can ride till you’re feeble and can’t hold yourself up anymore and have to have someone feed you mash!
Oh my gosh! Such sweet wishes! Thank you!! It does sound like you’ve had a run of bum luck yourself. I hope it turns around for you TODAY!
Wow. Just wow. You are one strong woman!! Makes my elbow injury look like nothing!
You have an amazing outlook, and I think that will go a long way. My injuries have not been nearly as bad as yours, but my last one was pretty bad by my normal standards (had to go to a specialist at Shock Trauma to get put back together again- and even he admitted I was pretty bad). This made my family freak out about my riding and jumping again (my elbow was horse related but not riding). I think non-horse people just don’t understand. My family realized that they aren’t going to stop me, and at least I asked my surgeon about how falling off the horse could impact things so they could hear it directly from him that my arm isn’t going to fall off just b/c I had hardware (we found out his opinion was that it’s not much different with hardware than without, so I was good to go in that sense).
I had hardware removal in January. One of the plates decided it didn’t want to play nice anymore, so it went from a “if I have it taken out” to “when do you want to schedule the surgery?” Sounds like yours will be more complicated than mine but for me, my surgeon said it’s usually so much easier taking it out than putting it in :)- and for me he was right!! I was amazed at how well it all went for me, and just think it can happen to you too (that visualization DGRH talked about :yes:). I know you want to be realistic, but stay positive too! Oh, and lots of scrubbing that leg with chlorhexidine the week before surgery can’t hurt either ;).
Good luck and keep us posted!
Wow, Pharmgirl! What’s your range of motion like in that elbow? How did it happen? Owieee!!
JackieBlue- I am very very lucky. I basically have full ROM in my elbow. I maybe lost ~10-15 degrees of flexion compared to my left but have full extension. My left goes to 155 deg, so if I’m only at ~140 on my right, I don’t really notice too much.
My left arm may even be a bit of a freak with more flexion b/c I broke that humerus in 2001 and it healed a bit crooked, allowing for certain movements to actually be better post-break (for ex: I have better internal rotation in that arm after than before!).
My surgeon did say REPEATEDLY that no one he’s ever seen with my type of injuries has ever recovered like this (and he does almost every upper extremity injury that comes into ST). But, I knew elbows were bad to injure, didn’t like to be immobilized, couldn’t be pushed too hard in rehab, etc, but I just would make a plan and keep plugging along. I had a great therapist that did a lot of work with elbows, and she got me hooked on trigger point therapy. My husband would yell at me sometimes early on that I was pushing myself too hard, that I am cocky b/c I know enough medicine to be dangerous and won’t listen to doctors. But, I think he calmed down about that when he realized that I do know what I’m doing and know what I can push a little and what I can’t based on my injuries and healing.
How it happened (not very exciting, really): I was leading my 17.2 draft cross back to his field, and we had a horse at the gate that didn’t want to get out of the way. I opened the gate only slightly (to help prevent cheeky pony at gate from sneaking out), and my horse stepped on my foot. Not enough for him to really notice, but just enough that I was stuck. I tried to get him off it as he walked through the gate and I guess he swung his butt through it knocked me down in the process (I didn’t see exactly- he hit me from behind, sending me forward and down onto frozen, gravel laden ground). Of course, as I try to get up thinking I might get trampled or something, my gelding is looking down at me like “why are you on the ground, mom?”
I was one armed before, so that wasn’t too bad. Just sucked not to be able to write since this one is my dominant hand. I think I will take injuring an arm over a leg any day, though! So much easier when you can still walk, I think.
I hear you about preferring to injure an arm, but I have a TON of nerve damage in my left leg, naturally, and much of it is completely numb. My left foot is worthless and I usually can’t accurately determine where it is without looking at it. If it were my left arm instead much of my hand dexterity would be lost along with most of the feeling. I much prefer an f’ed up left foot to an f’ed up left hand, even though the pain and difficulty of just getting from point A to point B with an injured leg is the pits.
Oooh, I see your point about that. They gave me a nerve block for the hardware removal, which was great, but it didn’t wear off for ~12 hours or so. Having dead weight of an arm with fingers I couldn’t feel or tell where they were did suck.
Jackie, I saw this post last night and was too moved to even post! Oh my!! I only ever broke my ankle and that was enough of an inconvenience for 6 weeks. I cannot imagine 18 surgeries and lay up before and after each one. It takes grits to live through that and get back to riding!! If you still wanted to go back to vet school, I have no doubt you would have the willpower to do so…
As far as the dash thing, my husband has always been adamant about NOT resting the feet on the dash. He forbade it to me and to our kids, explaining what could happen! I never really “heard” him, but still never put my feet up that way… Now I understand!! But, I still won’t show him your post and make him say “I told you so”.
Good luck. What a superwoman you are!!! It may be disturbing to your daughter, but what an example of courage you give her!
Ow, Ow and OW!!!
I managed to break my leg, ankle and foot in a Gold Cup race…which is a pretty interesting way to do it, but still ghastly (horse died, so I’m better than he is).
Anyway, ankle still acts up, lost lots of pronation and bending, haven’t been able to do anything besides at a walk speed since they, but I do ride.
Caught a cold, felt bad, lots of cold drugs and not much drinking (not hungry or thirsty)…so a week ago, both feet started hurting some…then Saturday, I found I couldn’t get off the couch. Turns out a great gout attack in both feet and left thumb. Finally hit the hospital yesterday to get indocin. So, it’s slowly getting better, but I did find you can’t really limp on both legs…and with a sore thumb, crutches aren’t your friend.
All of this is nothing compared to what poor JackieBlue is going through, but ankle injuries really do suck.
