Monday, November 8, 2010

The Latest Doctor's Visit...

Today I had another doctor's appointment where my orthopedic surgeon took final x-rays to see how all my bones are healing. He checked out my arm, knee, and ankle. And he also took an x-ray of my left leg; in the accident my left leg ended up protruding through the driver's side window and got banged up pretty badly. Weeks later, an enormous bruise developed. Obviously the bruise is gone now, however there is still a tender bump underneath where the bruise was. We got the x-rays back and had good news! My arm is all healed up, with the formerly broken area a shade lighter than the rest of the bone since it is newer. Same thing with the larger bone in my ankle. The smaller bone, though, the fibula, is still completely broken... And the doctor said that that one might never grow back together. It's got a plate connecting the two pieces together, and according to the doc the only thing that bone is really used for are the ligaments at the bottom, which are not affected by the broken bone. As far as I know, it doesn't cause me any extra pain or problems walking, so it might just be that I will always have a broken bone in my body! Which I think makes me a pretty interesting individual...

My knee has healed up nicely, too. The area on the outside of the knee is still uneven, and still likely to cause me problems. Doctor suggested an additional surgery within a year or so, one where they would go into my femur and slice part of it out and then input a plate in order to relieve pressure on the outside of my knee. How it is now, and how it is for people normally, is that the weight is shared and spread evenly throughout the knee joint. Since the outside of my knee cannot really support this weight post-accident, and trying to could lead to a quicker spread of arthritis in that area, this surgery would redistribute all of the weight onto the inner part of my knee - the part that was not affected by the accident. This surgery seems beneficial for a multiple of reasons, the first of which being that it would save my knee from arthritis for longer, pushing back the date of when I'll need a knee replacement. But also it would get rid of the forever-brace (thoughts of which have been the bane of my recovery), and, of course, would return my gait to normal. So no limping, no aching, no bubble feeling inside of my knee. Of course, the thought of another surgery, especially one where they go in and have to cut up my bone to realign everything, and recovery period is enough to make my stomach churn. I'm planning on seeing another orthopedic surgeon around here to take x-rays and see what he has to say. In the meantime, unless I am having drastic problems moving and walking, I doubt I will schedule the surgery for within the next year. Perhaps a couple years from now I will be ready, both emotionally and professionally, to go through the recovery period again. After all, I am graduating this spring, and who knows where I will be next year? Hopefully I will be on my feet!

As a side note, the google homepage let me know that today is the 115th anniversary of the discovery of x-rays. Appropriate for my doctor's visit, no?

-Amanda

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