One year ago I had surgery on my right broken ankle. I had never broken a bone before. I broke both my ankles Memorial Day 2018. Basically, I was on uneven rough ground and found a hole. My left foot went in, I bone chipped it. The right foot tried to help and I heard the snap as my bone in my ankle broke. We were in a park at the time. I needed surgery to fix the right one. So on June 12, 2018 I had surgery. And I was in a wheel chair for the whole summer! It was scary and the worst injury of my life. On my birthday in March I celebrated being able to walk for 6 months by doing a stair climb of 230 steps each way with 25 friends and family with me leading the way. The steps are outside so it was good to have nice weather for the climb. It was so great to be able to do that and have the support of so many people! So how many of you have broken a bone? Needed surgery? Or basically what was the worst injury of your life?
That’s sounds very painful. I have the good fortune, touch wood, to have not broken anything, or required surgery, except dental. I have narrowly avoided death a few times through sheer stupidity but luck has been on my side. So far.
The only bone I've ever broken (so far) was in my left foot/ankle. The bone that basically connects your foot to your ankle--mid-foot?--and is only a few inches long, but I split it right up the middle in the most ridiculous way. It was only a week or two after moving into our home. I was carrying a heavy load of laundry and was just about to go down the stairs. Some clothes fell out of the basket, and being the lazy-ass I am and not wanting to put the heavy basket down, I decided to just kick it down the stairs. One of the items of clothing was a bra, and it didn't budge, so I put my foot in the shoulder strap to try to kick it down the stairs. Well, I forgot that bras have hooks in the them, and hooks and carpet are a bad combination. My leg went forward but the bra didn't. It stayed hooked firmly to the carpet. The momentum took me forward and I went sailing over the stairs (about 7 or 8 steps) and hit the landing, still holding on to the laundry basket. It was a big, rectangular Rubbermaid one. For some reason, I had the presence of mind to let go at the last second and bring my arms in, so I didn't break my wrists. I landed on the basket, which broke apart like a flower. I was shaken up but felt OK, except for a few bruises, until I tried to stand. It was like a knife going through my foot, right at the bottom of my ankle. I had to scoot down the second flight of stairs on my butt, crawl to the phone and call my husband for help. I spent a week bed/couch-ridden, as I was supposed to keep it elevated for a week, until they could get my swollen foot into a boot-cast. After that, I wore the boot for six weeks. However, it took two or three months before I could really walk right again. To this day, my left foot doesn't bend properly, but I only notice it if I have to kneel.
First of all, congratulations on your recovery from that nasty injury! The only time I've broken a bone was in high school, when a car (the driver was making a left turn and the sun was in his eyes) knocked me off my bicycle. I fractured a tiny bone in my left wrist and my hand and lower arm were in a cast for six weeks. (Unfortunately I happen to be left-handed.) I've had a number of surgeries -- hernia repair, parathyroid removal, total thyroidectomy, and the granddaddy surgery of them all (so far): an aortic valve replacement last October. Fortunately (a) my Medicare coverage started that month, and (b) one of the best hospitals in the country, St. Johns in Santa Monica, is practically in my backyard. When they wheeled me into the O.R. for the heart surgery, I had never seen so much equipment in one operating room! Gadgets, monitors, blinkylights, things going pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The operation went well and I spent a total of four days in the hospital, with an additional six weeks of not driving or lifting anything heavier than 5 pounds to allow my sternum to heal. Oh, and I now have an aortic valve made from cow tissue.
Blew out my ankle back in high school playing soccer, been 25 years! now. Can still feel the screw head under the skin. Never given me any trouble though, good as new...
Butter's experience is mine exactly, but it's great to hear you are finally on the mend. It is amazing how some broken bones can heal easily and others require surgery and so much time and effort.
It sounded pretty painful from where I was standing, trust me. I was trying to assist her back to the car and it wasn't working. The sudden and unexpected inability to put weight on either of your feet gives a whole new perspective. (I used to be able to carry her, but those days are behind us.) As for me, my joints are kind of loose. I sprained the right ankle in 1984 and the left ankle in 1989, didn't allow either one to heal properly, and continued to sprain them over the years. In 2009 I sprained the left ankle three times in six months because by then it was kind of coming apart. I had to have reconstructive surgery; they peeled out part of my Achilles tendon and used that to rebuild the ankle ligaments. I got away without any metal parts, which Mrs. Silvercrest has. That wasn't too bad because the reconstructive surgery was planned out and I could prepare for it. In 2014 I twisted that same left ankle and this time it held. Unfortunately instead I came down with all that force on the outer edge of my left foot and cracked a bone there instead. THAT was worse than the surgery because it was out of nowhere, I was right back to using the cast and crutches, and we were unprepared for it. Fortunately it didn't require surgery, just time. It still has nothing on her experience. At least my right ankle seems to have settled down for the last few years.
I know what you mean about the foot not working right. My right one has a screw and a metal band thing in it so when the weather is cold, my foot will be stiff. I hear from others who had broken a bone and had metal in it hand, wrist, foot and so on that theirs does the same. So I will know when the weather changes to cold!
Yeah I remember 2014 injury was really bad and it took a while for him to get back to walking and other things again.
I am sorry you have had so many surgeries that sounds awful. Glad you are doing okay. Yeah, I wish I didn't recall the operating room. But I do recall how cold it was and the super narrow table I had to lay on. And I was scared I would just fall because it was also a high table. I felt so helpless that if I fell I couldn't do much about it. But one thing the surgeon did before the surgery I am so thankful for is he prayed with me, my husband, and mom before. And I felt so good from that. I knew I would be okay. Never had a doctor or surgeon pray with me before so rare!
When I was a kid I was admitted to the hospital about 50 times with asthma and pneumonia. Some of the medicine they were giving me somehow had an ill effect on my intestines. I think they called it a mal-rotation of my small intestine. Anyway I'm 7 or 8 and I'm sitting on the operating table for some kind of scope procedure and they had me drinking this really nasty barium solution to help them see better. I'm downing this noxious stuff when one of the nurses backs up and knocks me off the table. I didn't come to for a couple of hours and I had a really bad knot on my head for a few days. So far, that's been the worst injury I've had. Hopefully it didn't knock too much sense out of me.
Ack! Geez. You're lucky you didn't crack your skull open. I guess you can file that under, "Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse!."
Congratulations on that recovery too! Someone's been reading James Thurber. ... ... ... I really wanna say something funny here and I'm just a total blank. Can I get back to you? Possibly a hamburger joke.
I've only broken one bone, on my right foot. It's not the big toe exactly, but the side of it, where it connects to the rest of your foot. I was playing soccer in middle school PE class, and I kicked the ball at the same exact time as someone on the opposing team. Unfortunately he was a stronger kicker than I, so all of the force went right into my foot. I didn't realize what had happened until much later in the day. I walked on it all day (PE was 1st period), and when I got home my mom noticed that I was limping. To the doctor we went, where I had to get a cast all the way up to my knee. I don't remember how long I had to wear it, but I remember the bruises the crutches left in my armpits, and I remember getting to sit out of PE for several weeks. Unfortunately, the cast left some sort of bruise or mark on my right shin, which still appears there even 20 years later. It looks like I have a big bruise on my leg. As for surgery, my only experience is having emergency gallbladder removal surgery about 3 years ago. I don't remember any of it obviously, but I had a longer than usual recovery since they were concerned about possible infection. Stayed overnight in the hospital for a couple of nights. Recovery was painful, but nowhere near as painful as having a gallbladder attack brought on by gallstones had been. It's an agonizing abdomen pain, the kind where you can't do anything but lie on the floor in a ball moaning.
@Mrs. Silvercrest , first let me say that sounds really painful! I’m glad you were able to make a full recovery! But I should also mention... We generally prefer people not to post more than twice in a row in rapid succession. If you’d like to reply to a number of posts, it’s preferred to use the Multi Quote function (the “+ Quote” at the bottom right of every post.) I know you’re new, so no worries, just letting you know for future reference!
Man, two broken ankles at once! I've had a lot of surgeries, but most when I was a resilient child who liked the attention and stuffed toys. I had over 20 surgeries on my ears to correct congenital deafness (not a chochlear implant, I had physical barriers that needed restructuring) between the ages of 2 and 12, including a tempanoplasty, which involved cutting off part of my earlobe and grafting it inside. My memories are mostly positive, because, coming from a "troubled" home, those were rare times when the attention was on me. As an adult I did break some bones in my foot (stepped into a pothole in the dark while wearing platforms). I have this weird tendency to doubt my own experience of pain though, and assumed I'd just twisted my ankle. Three months later it was still sore and I finally saw a doctor who confirmed several minor fractures. I don't know that it constitutes an injury, but my ovary ruptured three years ago. That was by far the most painful thing I've ever gone through. The pain was so intense that morphine did nothing. I basically spent three days mostly unconscious on Dilaudid. The drug was so strong I started asking them for half doses. I was fortunate that the internal bleeding stopped on its own. They monitored me in ICU and I didn't need surgery. I'm immensely grateful, because that would have been an intensive surgery and possibly meant losing an ovary.
My left big toe is currently mid heal after a break, problem is I keep doing stupid things like running on it....