Well, That's not Good

 

      If you remember this is what my leg looked like after my first surgery. They did this because they were worried about infection in my foot and ankle. I broke my fibula and tibia about two or three inches above my ankle. Instead of infection it was a case of Chacot Foot, that is a softening of the bones in my foot. 

   After just one day short of a week in the hospital I was sent home with orders to keep my foot elevated and to stay off of it all the time, which I did most of the time. I did try to use the walker a couple of time to walk with without success, as a matter of fact I almost crashed really bad trying to get into the bathroom. I started to fall backwards and out of habit I planted my right foot down pretty hard. 

   The other thing about this apparatus was that it had to be unwrapped every two days and the heel pin openings, the 3 in. or so stapled wound, and around the top two screws. This involved first unwrapping ace bandages, then gauze, and then cleaning the entry points with iodine then this moist type tape to seal it. and then a pad over the wound. Then it was back on with the gauze and ace bandages. Gayla got to where she could do it all in under 40 minutes.

   Now back to the hard step. It wasn't long after that happened that Gayla noticed the tip of a pin sticking out of my ankle. There wasn't very much of it just the tip, but it was enough to make her almost faint. Me I didn't feel a thing, it was in the nephropathy zone on my foot. That was on a Sunday and we had a Tuesday appointment so we let it slide until then. When we got to the doctor's office they took me into x-ray. While I was in there I had several people come in to take a look, they were all surprised I was so calm and felt no pain. Sure enough the x-ray showed that one of the pins in my foot to try and support my ankle had started coming out.

  In the examining room the doctor and the P.A. came in and took a look at the pin tip and the x-ray. Again they asked me on a scale of 1 to 10 what my pain was and I said zero. The doctor got a set of forceps to pull it out and I told her I thought there was so little sticking out she oughta just knock it back in. She didn't think that was very funny and told me they never put things back in like that because of chance of infection. Time now to pull the pin, Gayla who was already looking queezey left the room and then the doc. got down to business. It didn't take much to pull the pin out, just a short pull and it was out. My pain level was still 0 and I thought it was cool watching them pull it out, of course it wasn't that long only about two inches, maybe three. 

   On our visit the next week after my customary x-ray we saw the doctor and she didn't look to happy. She didn't look to happy as she visited with us, and I told Gayla so. I think that Doc. already knew what was going on, but they went ahead and scheduled me for surgery the next week to take the apparatus out and try and pin my two bones or so I thought.

   Next time on to the journey takes an unexpected twist. Until then remember Psalms 34:18 - The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.