Follow up Appointment

Today was my follow up appointment with the surgeon to see how I'm healing and so he could go over the details with visual aides and less of a post anesthesia fog. I figured that it wouldn't be that big of a deal except for the fact that it would be the first that I left the house since surgery on Friday. It turned out to be quite a bit more involved and difficult than I had anticipated. Maybe today wasn't the day for me to start tapering off of the pain meds.


I called this morning as instructed and made an appointment for 3:35pm. Let me begin by saying that the two previous visits were both in the morning, had me waiting in the lobby for maybe 5 minutes and were brief and painless. So when we walked in and found a packed waiting room it was obvious that we would have to wait a bit before getting back to the exam room. One of the things about this injury that makes it difficult is the straight-legged position that I am kept in. It is pretty hard to be comfortable anywhere but on a couch or a bed. Something that came about Sunday and has been quite a nuisance is that my ankle has swollen to the size of a large orange or small grapefruit. So without elevation my knee (and now my ankle) tend to throb and make me squirm. So the waiting room was not a place I wanted to spend a lot of time. Can you hear Mick Jagger singing? "You can't always get what you want..."


Eventually they did call me back and the real fun began. First up - the unveiling. With each layer coming off and less support offered to my leg, the more nervous I became. So eventually the brace, the ice pack ez wrap, the medical support hose and several layers of bandages were removed and my leg was out and vulnerable. The swelling is down and the wound is healing well, but what an incision! Its at least 12 inches long from just above my knee, down the shin bone to about where the top of dress socks would stop. It's stapled together with 30 or 40 staples I guess. I'm tempted to post the picture that Danielle took with my phone on here, but it may be too much for some folks to see. (If requested I'll send it to you, but only if you want to see it.) So Dr. Ove was pleased with what he saw outside my leg and now wanted photos of the inside. So after about half a second of discussion it was decided that I needed my brace back on to go over to the xray room. So a temporary dressing was quickly wrapped around my leg and my brace was strapped lightly over my wound and I crutched it over to xray. Xray tables are not in any way comfortable and again the brace had to be removed and I struggled to remain still and hold my leg as requested. The xray tech allowed Danielle to hold my leg for me while she set up for a second angle. Danielle and I waited again while she made sure that the doctor was pleased with the shots before replacing my brace and taking me back to the exam room.

Dr. Ove came in with the xrays and showed me my new hardware. The plate is about as long as the incision and is shaped a little like a golf club or hockey stick because it bends and forms the new "plateau" on top of the bone. Out of the 7 or 8 screws that fasten it to my bone 4 of them are below the fractured section and into good solid bone. The crushed section is all lifted back up and cemented in place in the crook of the plate. My buddy Mike and I were hoping that he would hook up a little speaker in my knee cap to make the bionic man sound effect while I walk or run. No such luck.

Then began the process or re-wrapping me in bandages. The hardest part of that was pulling the support hose back up over the bandages. Due to the swelling in my ankle he wants me to keep the support hose on for a while longer. He said I could continue to ice the ankle, but that there was no need to continue to ice my knee (although Danielle continues to ice both). So Danielle held my leg up by the foot while the nurse slowly worked the hose up an over the bandages from my ankle to the top of my thigh. She then put my brace back on without the ez wrap ice pack inside it. So there are now only a few layers of gauze between the staples/incision and the straps of the brace.

We scheduled to have the staples removed next Monday afternoon and they sent me upstairs to make my first appointment for physical therapy, which will be the following Monday. So things are moving along.

All in all this appointment was a lot more involved than I had anticipated. By the end I was spent and in a good deal of pain as we headed home 2 hours later. On the car ride I also noticed that the nurse had put the brace on about 2-3 inches lower than it should have been, so it was rubbing in all the wrong places. Danielle has become quite proficient with the knee brace and for future appointments I'd prefer her to remove and/or replace it instead of the nurses.

Once home I was brought a marvelous meal by Carol Patterson and with each bite of chicken parmigiana, mashed potatoes and green beans the discomfort of the appointment faded away like a bad dream....