Follow-Up

It's been some days since I posted about my accident, so I thought I would give an update.

At first I was optimistic that I would go back to work tomorrow, but now I don't think it would be such a good idea. There is still a lot of pain, so I'm still having to take a lot of meds, and those meds lead to a lot of drowsiness. It's just a bad combination of factors that would make it hard for me to be a decent human being to the people around me.

I've been telling people recently that the break doesn't bother me at all. The bones are held in place by gigantic pieces of metal. My knee is the biggest issue. Don't be deceived--ramming a metal pipe through the knee and into a bone is not the gentle, harmless procedure it sounds like. Oh, wait...that's right: it sounds about as bad as it feels.

I'm trying to keep my leg elevated more today, since yesterday I went to the boys' football games. I am finding, however, that no matter what I do, or how I try to be careful and take care of my leg, it's always going to hurt anyway.

But enough of all that. I feel like I'm whining, and I don't want to do that. Below, I've posted some pictures of the broken leg, sans bandages. They may not be for the faint of heart, so if you vomit easily or pass out at the sight of blood and gore, you might want to stop reading here.

Here you get the overall idea of the amount of swelling. Not pretty.

This picture shows where the incision was made on my knee to insert the rod. Notice the awesome staples holding me together.
Lots of bruising here. If you look at the left side of the leg, above the yellow gauze, you can see a bright red bump. These are a series of blisters, my doctor told me, that come from the bone rubbing against the skin from the inside. Apparently I was very close to a compound fracture.
Here's a side view of the same area. You can see the blisters again. The gauze is covering two other stapled-shut incisions where the screws were put in. Those cuts are still oozing blood, so I have to keep them wrapped. Gross, huh?

So there you have it. You can see why mobility is such a difficulty with all the swelling. I'm hopeful that it will go down in the next couple of days so that I can return to work.