3 months post ORIF

Thank you Richard😁  Maybe I will take a friend up on their offer to visit and swim!

Hi!

And thank you so much for responding. I'm so sorry that you are going through this too. It's just so frustrating. I had two surgeries for my trimalleolar fracture and now have two plates and 12 screws. My surgeon assured me I would be walking in 8 weeks. At this point I do stand while in my boot with about 25 percent WB to keep my balance but thats it. 

I don't want to be a baby but it feels so weird and not right when it turns purple that my stomach literally turns and I have to go put it up again! And I'm usually really tough! I've had more than my share of horrible injuries and surgeries. This has been my biggest challenge. So much love and strength to everyone on this forum because life after ORIF surgery (for the foreseeable future) is no fun at all!

I would hear of someone breaking their ankle and not have too much sympathy as that doesn't sound too bad, right?! Haha! Boy have I learned my lesson. And I can understand why some get really depressed. It's not just the being dependent, the pain, the struggle for recovery. It's no one cleaning the house to your standards. It's (in my case) my dog getting anxiety from my week long hospital stay and then the big change to normal routine so now he is stress peeing in my bedroom. It's endless lonely hours. It's weird new symptoms in the middle of the night. Last night I had my middle toe twitching for four hours! It's all that and SO much more!

blessings!

Im so sorry this happened to you too! Trusting the ankle is definitely an issue but HOW to trust the darn thing when your foot is turning all shades of colors and when you look down it looks like you wearing a plum colored short boot!

I really hope you are feeling much better soon!!!!

Same here, Kim. 12 weeks after multiple ankle feactures and dislocation. Stuck at home, depending on others, can't have a boot on yet. No use,right now. No matter how much I massage/manipulate my foot/ankle ( and my PT guy too), my foot is like frozen in time and it hurts occasionally. ( Ok, everyday). Gets purple all the time. Have multiple " hardware" in my foot too.

I only hope that it will get better.

So we have 3 months behind us now, hard to be positive, after daily pains and discomfort, but what I read, it could take a year to heal.

I just got my knee scooter today, so hoping to roll around the home,instead of the office chair with wheels. I'm not stable on crutches and walker is hard for me too, but the scooter looks promising.

I wait everyday for new posts from people like you....it is a horrible journey to go thru, but at least I have people to cheer me on and I get lots of possitive and helpful tips. Best luck to you💛

Ugh that just stinks! I totally feel your pain and frustration. I'm so tired of these walls and I'm mad at myself for not being able to get past the color and the pain to put the foot down more often. And when I shower it's the worst. I always reinsure a tendon behind my knee from trying not to put the foot down and the water does something to make the foot look even worse. From every day showering to now every three or four days so I feel like garbage on top of it all!

O thought long and hard about posting and answering with bad things etc. But I think it REALLY helps to know you are not alone in this. I think very few ankle fractures that require surgery heal fast and on track. We NEEd this place to not go crazy!

Lol, the showering, omg how do you do it?! I sit on the edge of tub, lift my legs over, and let the shower run on me. I'm twisted and turned funny, and my foot gets worse than any other activity! It's so painful I may as well be homeless because I'm always dirty (at least I feel that way). I've been sitting here all day trying to get the gumption to endure this pain, lol! What's one more day? Haha

I have hardware too, and I just got my knee scooter 3 days ago. Forward ok, but in reverse is kind of a joke. You know fighting off the pain while pushing backwards, it's real work. My back and hip feel screwy on it as well, ouch. Crutches are dumb too. I'm just a bundle of positivity lol And I never wear the boot, I massage, ice, elevate, and it's still pretty much stiff and swollen.

...sounds like me, Kim. It is pretty hellish experience in all. Now my back and hip is affected too. I think that I will forever be limping, but I'm 63 years old, so any walking/limping is better than ? or walker.

On the scooter. Please be careful, the brakes are a joke!!!!

Keep me posted on your progress. None here, yet ( ouch).💛

I just want to get to the point of limping, lol. I just started Exogen 12 days ago to increase the blood flow, for some reason no callous is noticeable yet. Appt. next wed, c'mon already fracture! Could very well be my bad smoking habit, I'm trying hard to cut back - tough. I'm 47 but definitely feel 97.  I got the scooter thinking it was my ticket to freedom, I was going to get out of here, LOL as if.  My son starts school in 6 weeks, must gain some mobility by then to get him at school - tick, tock.

Kim,

I absolutely feel your pain. My last smoke was five minutes before I shattered this darn ankle. While in the hospital I was told that the house orthopedic surgeon was not skilled enough to do my surgery and that they had to call in a trauma surgeon. The first thing that guy said when he finally got there was "do you smoke??". I said I do and he said that If I didn't agree to stop right then and there that he was not going to the surgery for me. That he does not play against losing odds and his work is too good to be wasted. I agreed, lol, but only to shut him up so he would get on with it.

Well, I had no idea I would be in the hospital for a full week and two surgeries for a friggen broken ankle. I had a silly naive thought that they would set the bone, put a cast on and send me home. Hahahahah!!! Righttttt. And the shots in the tummy of blood thinners and the pain that was so bad it was like a bad dream. I didn't really miss them in the hospital.

And at home I just did not have the motivation to get up and go outside to smoke. It took too much energy. The first few weeks there were times I would just lay there and cry because I wanted one So Bad. I'm 48, have been smoking since I am 12 and the only times I have quit previously had been for pregnancy.

At my first post op appointment to have the staples out, again the first thing he asked was if I managed to not smoke. I was actually so surprised with myself that I could actually honestly answer yes. That's when he told me horror stories. Which somehow stuck with me and came to mind everytime I thought about saying heck with it and lighting up. 

To be honest quitting while in so much pain and dealing with peri menopause was the hardest thing I have ever done. And every morning the struggle starts again. I have gained weight and feel like I am not nearly as motivated as I should be and I think that is avoidance of going into the real world without my smokes. And I think my purple foot is definitely from being such a long time smoker.

i am so sorry that you are having a hard time. It just stinks in every way possible and I'm sending you healing vibes and good luck that it gets better soon!!!🍀💚🌼🌺??

Kim! And omg the shower! I have this horrid small tub/shower with sliding glass doors. To actually get in without putting weight on the foot I actually scootch my butt up onto a bar stool and then slide off it into the tub. Then I sit in the silly shower chair but it's all so narrow and no room so I never have a place to put my foot and my other leg actually starts to shake from the stress of holding myself rigid. And because I wait so long in Bowen showers they take foreverrrr! I have to wash my waist length hair twice to get the grease out and then condition so I can comb it. By the time I get out I'm close to fainting lol. While in there I have to somehow get back onto the bar stool I have next to the tub so I can again slide off of it but this time out of the tub and back into the bathroom floor part. At this point I'm bright red all over like I ran the Boston marathon. My ankle foot and knee are killing and I'm lucky to walker my way back to my Bed and throw myself on it in a grateful heap of "I can't believe I made it!"

And that's a big improvement from the first month, lol. I don't even have words for the first month. I was dirtier than ever in my life because I just could not deal and had not figured out my clever slide onto the stool on one slide and slide off into the tub trick yet, lol

Well you and me both, dirty dirty lol. I broke down yesterday and did it, damn my foot was a mess and swollen. And yeah I have long hair too, jeez! Honestly gives me a new respect for those with disabilities, this is hard work! 

Smoking, ewww yeah, I'm still doing it. I've been told that the ultrasound machine my doc prescribed gives me a level playing field compared to non-smokers, as far as blood flow to the bone, so I'm hoping it's working. I can't wait for my 4 week follow up next Wednesday, I need to see some action in there. My surgeon was a freak, I have a new one for the recovery process, but 1st guy never asked me if I smoked, he said are you "healthy?" Lol, I guess so. 

A week in hospital, holy cow, I would have gone insane. Mine was outpatient, but the nerve block didn't work, so I stayed in until morning. The hospital was irritating me by 4am, so I said sign me out and I left. And they wouldn't give me a wheelchair to go to bathroom lol. It was a shared room and they wanted me to pee next to my neighbor's curtain dividing us in their baby potty - uhhh no, so long hospital.

We really have gone through lots, haven't we!!! Hopefully you will keep the no smoking, the only time I was successfully able to quit was pregnancy. I just bought a vape, my doc now insisted, I'm trying to go for it more often than cigarettes, it's tough though.