#TBT: A Year in the Life of My Ankle

Sometimes, I’m late jumping on a bandwagon. But when I do, I jump on (in) with both feet and take up the banner. Here, instead of posting old photos, #TBT will be looking back at the 1,760 posts from the past eight years (yes, I’ve been blogging for EIGHT YEARS!) and sharing one chosen at random every Thursday.

If you want to join in the #TBT fun, share a link to your #TBT post in the comments section below!

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Throwback Thursday Post of the Week:
Friday Retrospective–A Year in the Life of My Ankle
Originally posted: November 4, 2011

A year ago today, November 4, 2010, this happened:

Short version of the story: I fell and dislocated and fractured both bones in my right ankle when leaving the library after spending the afternoon working on The Art of Romance. You can read the long version of the story here. That weekend, my parents came over and picked me up and took me home with them to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where I would stay while I convalesced.

Here’s what it looked like on Thursday, November 11, 2010 when the ER splint was removed at my first appointment with the orthopedic surgeon:

On Wednesday, November 17, 2010, I had surgery to plate and screw the bones back together. You can read about my surgery experience here.

A week after surgery on Wednesday, November 24, 2010, I went back for my first follow-up appointment at which they removed the surgical splint (and the cotton batting, which is what you see stuck to my leg). And, of course, there’s a blog post about that.

Here’s a better picture of the outside of the leg, taken three weeks post-surgery:

All of the skin abrasions/scabs surrounding the surgical scar are from where the original ER splint rubbed my skin raw.

After spending a month getting around in a wheelchair that barely fit through the doors at my parents’ house—and was a (literal) pain for my parents to get in and out of their vehicles whenever we went anywhere—on an acquaintance’s advice, I found a medical supplier in Little Rock that rented knee walkers, so on Wednesday, December 9, 2010, we drove over to Little Rock to get it—and to have lunch with my uncle and aunt who live there.

At my six-week post-surgery follow-up appointment on Thursday, December 30, 2010, I was allowed to start bearing weight—with the walking boot. (Sorry, no pictures.)

Over Martin Luther King weekend, my mom and I made a trip back to Nashville so that I could participate in the Manchester-Coffee County Library Author Day event on January 15, 2011.

Then, the next week, back in Hot Springs, I had another appointment on January 20 at which we set the date for my final surgical procedure and at which I was told I could start driving again—though I still had to walk in the boot—which meant a change of footwear getting in and out of the car. On Wednesday, February 2, 2011, I had a quick in-and-out surgery to remove the long screw that corrected the separation between the fibula and tibia.

Once this surgery was complete, I was free to go—back home to Nashville! I did have to go back to Hot Springs once more for a final appointment on February 17, 2011, at which I was given the all-clear to continue recovery on my own.

Since then . . .

It’s been a long road of recovery, and I’m still working on it. Because there was so much soft tissue damage due to the dislocation, I still have problems with pain and stiffness, especially if I’ve been sitting for too long (and given the nature of my jobs, it’s pretty much a given that I sit too long all the time), but it’s coming along.

And here’s what it looks like one year after it all began:

So, there it is. A “year in the life” of my ankle.

Update, May 1, 2014:
It’s ironic that when I clicked on “random post,” this would be the one that came up.

On Saturday, April 12, 2014, I suddenly started experiencing severe pain in my ankle. I thought, maybe, it was because there was supposed to be a front/big spring storm moving through later. But it continued to hurt—for two more weeks. So, finally, on Friday, April 25, I went to an urgent care place and had it X-rayed for the first time in three years. I was afraid that perhaps something was wrong with the hardware or that the bone(s) had started stress fracturing around the screws and/or plate.

Fortunately, the hardware and bones looked fine. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of swelling that is wreaking havoc with the scar tissue from all of the soft-tissue damage done by the dislocation. It’s most likely the swelling is being caused by my psoriasis (possibly the beginning of psoriatic arthritis), but it presents like a moderate sprain, so that’s how the doctor chose to treat it. So I’ve spent the last (almost) week wearing this:

It definitely doesn’t hurt as much as it had been, but it’s not back to 100% of where it was before this started (it’ll never truly be back at 100%—I’ve been injuring this ankle since my first bad sprain the summer after third grade). But if it doesn’t stop hurting soon, I’ll be making an appointment with a rheumatologist to see if it really is psoriatic arthritis and, if so, what can be done about it.