The slide

September 7th, 2017

Something isn't right. I taught in an Elementary school today and I couldn't leave the room at the end of the day. I had to muster up the energy and swallow the pain to get to my car. The moment I got in I broke down in tears. I couldn't believe this was the way my life would be now. I can't walk... I can't even stand. I had several Dr. appointments in the last couple months, they said this is the "norm", pain from arthritis. Dr. "Exit" reminding me that my lower leg was obliterated and that I had no cartilage for protection... but still...

I made an appointment specifically for the pain. My Dr. reviewed my X-rays and ordered a CT scan. In the X-ray the hardware was shifting.I had also damaged the ligaments in between my tibia and fibula, sliding and separation was occurring. The CT scan came back with no hardware issues but movement from walking have created cysts, edema, and arthritis. My doctor reminded me how bad my injury was and they did their best to reconstruct but I'm basically walking on a break and the only option is fusion of my right ankle, arthrodesis. Why not an ankle replacement? Too young, and an ankle replacement would wear out in a few years and then they would end up fusing anyway. Wy not stem cells? We are not there yet in science ( I am a biology major, I did my research)... Almost! but not yet... I can't wait that long.

So here we go. I need to wrap my head around the idea that I can never go back... that I would be fused for the rest of my life. That my range of motion would be limited, I would need to learn to walk again. My ankle was ready but my head was not. Doing lots and lots of research, I did not find many stories that took me into depth about the recovery... the journey... I decided to go with it anyway. I really had no other choice, I COULDN'T WALK!

This is when I decided to document my experience. I had journaled my process thus far and now I was ready to share.

I scheduled my second reconstruction, ankle fusion for September 22nd.