Yesterday I spent an awful long time in hospital waiting to find out a date when the fixator will be off. I had an 3 lots of x-rays and saw the dressings nurse but I spent the most time waiting to see Mr Dennison. Apparently Mr Dennison is one of the best Orthopaedics for trauma and external fixators.
I was called into see him and he was a lovely gentleman, I felt at ease straight away.
We looked at the x-rays and he explained that whilst the x-ray of my leg straight on looked perfect, the x-ray of that shows the side of my leg doesn't look so good. Basically, the smaller bone that was broken is healing up well but the bigger, shin bone, has come out of place and hasn't healed at all. I was gutted. I suppose I had all my hopes on coming home to Sheffield in March and now it looks like that's not going to happen. When Mr Dennison said that we'd have to move the bone into place, I panicked; I had visions of having my leg reset or another operation, but it just meant that the cage had to be tightened which would push the pins, and the bone, into a better position.
Mr Dennison got out a torque wrench and started tightening the bolts on my cage. It felt a little uncomfortable when he was tightening it but the real pain came when I stood up and my leg crunched the bone together. I was a bit wobbly walking with my crutches but it got easier the more I walked. I went for another x-ray and the difference in my leg was immediate. We could see that the frame was pushing my bones straight so it would heal properly.
My parents asked if they could see the first x-ray taken when I was admitted to hospital. I was so jacked up on morphine at the time so I was curious to see too. The x-ray, however, made me want to be sick. Although my leg was straight, my foot was at a right angle to the left- it was disgusting. Mr Dennison finished off the consultation by saying the fixation will be on for 6 months in a worst case scenario but as I'm young and don't smoke, hopefully it'll be off before then.
