Honey Badger
...iz a girl
Okay, this was far from a life-threatening incident, but probably the most laid up I've been for a longer time period. This is mostly just to journal my progress as things happen, since I'm not entirely certain what to expect, and at this point, my ortho isn't even sure what to expect.
Basically, I was in a dirt bike class, my first time on a dirt bike. Most boring crash in the world, but managed to snap my tib/fib pretty badly. Thankfully I had full moto cross boots on (Tech 3s) since I'm guessing anything less would have resulted in a nasty compound fracture - things at least stayed closed.
This happened on Saturday, December 3, 2016, a little before noon.
I went to the ER, where they x-rayed and consulted with the on-call ortho. They put on a soft cast, and sent me off with some pain meds with instructions to contact a local ortho back home.
After doing some research on orthos in my insurance network, and doing some research on the ones that were relatively local, I decided on a sports medicine doc who had a resume working with athletes and reviews of his work were pretty good. I got in to see them that same afternoon.
We had to re-xray the leg, and he wasn't happy. First, he wasn't happy the ER just sent me home, he felt it should have been fixed right then and there (I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever have a good experience in an ER - every time I've been in one, it has been a horrible experience either at the time or afterwards finding out their incompetence).
Secondly, apparently the break was pretty bad. Both bones fully broken just north of the ankle, with an angular break on the tibia. Additionally, there were hairline fractures through the tibia head, which concerned him in regards to the ankle joint. To top it all off, since the ER had just sent me home, I had developed a fracture blister, which would make surgery that much more complicated as they cannot break the blisters (significant increase in risk of infection if those are broken).
Surgery is scheduled for next Tuesday, December 13. According to the PA today at my pre-op, there will be open redaction with external fixation....he claims I'll be able to crutch around like I have been this week, just can't put any weight on the leg (which is pretty much my current situation). As long as I can still get around in crutches, I'll deal, although it sounds like it will be a total PITA. I was hoping for "just" internal fixation (plates n screws), but doesn't sound like that's the plan :nchantr
In the meantime, I'm just adjusting to life with crutches. Thankfully I can telecommute a fair bit with my job, so that helps make things a little easier, I'm not having to burn up a bunch of PTO. If I do need to go into the office, that's a bit of a PITA, but do-able. My teammate (Ozymandias here on le BARF) temporarily traded trucks with me so I could use his automatic (my truck is a manual - kind of tough to use right now LOL).
I'm probably going to head up to Sacramento for part of Monday and go see my new bike that I (ironically) just picked up last Friday, the night before this happened. I'm just hoping I'm ready to ride by the time the bike is....but at least going up and seeing it and talking to the guys who are helping me set it up will give me something happy to think about going into surgery.
The off-season is good in that I have some time before I really start missing out on things, but the bad thing is, it's also a little too easy to just want to be lazy about healing and accept the long term plans they like to hand out to average joes - which is not usually my M.O. Hopefully seeing my bike go together will motivate me to stick with a more aggressive treatment plan :cool
Basically, I was in a dirt bike class, my first time on a dirt bike. Most boring crash in the world, but managed to snap my tib/fib pretty badly. Thankfully I had full moto cross boots on (Tech 3s) since I'm guessing anything less would have resulted in a nasty compound fracture - things at least stayed closed.
This happened on Saturday, December 3, 2016, a little before noon.
I went to the ER, where they x-rayed and consulted with the on-call ortho. They put on a soft cast, and sent me off with some pain meds with instructions to contact a local ortho back home.
After doing some research on orthos in my insurance network, and doing some research on the ones that were relatively local, I decided on a sports medicine doc who had a resume working with athletes and reviews of his work were pretty good. I got in to see them that same afternoon.
We had to re-xray the leg, and he wasn't happy. First, he wasn't happy the ER just sent me home, he felt it should have been fixed right then and there (I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever have a good experience in an ER - every time I've been in one, it has been a horrible experience either at the time or afterwards finding out their incompetence).
Secondly, apparently the break was pretty bad. Both bones fully broken just north of the ankle, with an angular break on the tibia. Additionally, there were hairline fractures through the tibia head, which concerned him in regards to the ankle joint. To top it all off, since the ER had just sent me home, I had developed a fracture blister, which would make surgery that much more complicated as they cannot break the blisters (significant increase in risk of infection if those are broken).
Surgery is scheduled for next Tuesday, December 13. According to the PA today at my pre-op, there will be open redaction with external fixation....he claims I'll be able to crutch around like I have been this week, just can't put any weight on the leg (which is pretty much my current situation). As long as I can still get around in crutches, I'll deal, although it sounds like it will be a total PITA. I was hoping for "just" internal fixation (plates n screws), but doesn't sound like that's the plan :nchantr
In the meantime, I'm just adjusting to life with crutches. Thankfully I can telecommute a fair bit with my job, so that helps make things a little easier, I'm not having to burn up a bunch of PTO. If I do need to go into the office, that's a bit of a PITA, but do-able. My teammate (Ozymandias here on le BARF) temporarily traded trucks with me so I could use his automatic (my truck is a manual - kind of tough to use right now LOL).
I'm probably going to head up to Sacramento for part of Monday and go see my new bike that I (ironically) just picked up last Friday, the night before this happened. I'm just hoping I'm ready to ride by the time the bike is....but at least going up and seeing it and talking to the guys who are helping me set it up will give me something happy to think about going into surgery.
The off-season is good in that I have some time before I really start missing out on things, but the bad thing is, it's also a little too easy to just want to be lazy about healing and accept the long term plans they like to hand out to average joes - which is not usually my M.O. Hopefully seeing my bike go together will motivate me to stick with a more aggressive treatment plan :cool
