If you are grossed out by the mention of anything medical, you'd better hit your "back" button before the images below appear!
NEVER put a roller skater on ice... He'll think he knows what he's doing...
Well, it all started when I did that tripple axle followed by th double
lutz, uh, yea, that's da ticket, a double lutz, yeeeeeeah. OK. I was skating
about 1/2 mile an hour, turned sideways, got my feet caught on each other,
or the ice, I don't know, cause before I knew it I was hitting the ice with
all my weight directly on my left hip. (Reach down your side and feel that
bone that sticks out at the top of your leg... that's what I landed directly
on! That's the hump on the side of your femur, just under the hip socket.)
Oh, back to the saga...
Well, I thought it strange that I couldn't get up by myself, and had to
have two guys lift me to a bench. After a few minutes, I said OK, call the
ambulance, and they took me to the E.R., and did X-Rays, and then the doctor
came in and said "I've got bad news and bad news" Don't you hate
it when they say that? "I'll" take the bad news" - "You
broke your hip!" He presented me with this wonderfull image:
Notice the jagged dark wedge just under the femur's hip ball. That's
called a subcapital fracture of the femur, boys and girls. Or, as I said,
"Broken Hip" for short.
Then I aksed for the bad news. "You're having surgery in the morning."
WHAT! Geez, don't waste any time or anything... Good night!
The next morning, the orthopedic surgon came in, and sure enough, said
he wanted to pin the bone together ASAP. My other choice was to do nothing,
let it try to heal, and when it gets really knocked out of place and the
bone dies then I'll be coming back to get a hip replacement... OK! OK! Do
the surgery!
3pm he did. With a 3" incision on the side of my leg, they put 3 cantalevered
pins up into the bone, pulling the two pieces together perfectly. The result
is that the fracture now appears as only a hairline in the x-rays. These
were taken during my surgery so the doc could see what he was doing...
Gross, huh? See the pins are threaded on the tip, so as they are turned, they pull the top piece down against the bottom. Now that they are held together, all I have to do is stay off my leg for 3 months while they fuse back together. And yes, I will be setting off airport metal detectors for the rest of my life - the pins stay right where they are.
Well, two weeks latter I'm here at work, and sitting uncomfortably in the chair. I'll see how much stuff I can take home with me to do there. The incision has healed up wonderfully, and after the scabs are done, there should hardly be a scar!
After last Monday, I stayed at home most the week... that was too tiring!
But, I drove myself to work today, since I can bend my leg enough to swing
in into the car now. Oh, BTW, I have almost full range of motion, but my
leg has been hurting because that breaks up the scar tissue in the musscle.
I'm taking a muscle toner, though, that really helps the muscles to heal
up great. (If you work out, ask me about the stuff.) Anyways, life goes
on, and this week I get to learn a new software package that consists of
defining geometrical objects in 3-D and scattering light rays off them...
fun!
Check back by the end of the month for a new image to see how it's healing
up. Feel free to contact me (see homepage) anytime. (However, note that
I'm just a ~tad~ backlogged on reading emails. (About three weeks!)) Thanks
and God Bless!
You can see the smallest amount of bone structure across the fracture now! I can begin walking (crutching) with about 20 pounds of weight on my leg.
At this point, if you were to open me up (gross!) and look at the bone,
you really wouldn't see the crack, but the X-rays tell all! It's actuall
up to about 70%+ of it's original strenght. I can bear all my weight on
my leg, so I can take baby steps around a room.
Things are going quite well, thanks for asking. I get around using one crutch
and nothing hurts except direct pressure on the incission scar, where the
pins' heads stick out of the bone a bit.
I'm now able to walk without crutches, and am continuing to regain strength...
I'm pretty much up & running (well, jogging, anyways) without hinderance. My Doc was impressed at the muscle strength in my leg and that I had lost weight without losing muscle tone. What do I want to do now? GO ROLLER SKATING!!!
Guess what I did for the Laurel 4th of July parade? Went roller skating with my church's kid's group, and brought my juggling pins, too. Lots of fun! I'm baaaaaaaaack!
This is what the bone now looks like.
Back to the hospital I go! Nothing's wrong, I'm just getting the pins removed! When Doc Raiford came into see me in the pre-op and asked if I was rearing to go, I said "Oh, yeah, I even did the incision already to get a head start." "OK, well we'll be ready in about 15 minutes..." Doc never laughs at my jokes; he's very serious and down to earth. He asked If I remembered to pick up my X-rays to bring with me. Opps! He said that was OK, he knew what it looked like. I said he could just cut on the dotted line (my old scar) and he'd find them. He still didn't laugh. I told him if there was an internet connection, he could just bring up my webpage. He said "What? You've got your X-rays on a webpage? Really? Haha! Where are they? What's the address? Hahaha! Really? I'll look at them from home. Hahaha!" So, I found the way to Doc's funny bone was through showing his handywork to the world. He later emailed me...
Dear Bert Pasquale,
I visited your web site today. You did an excellent job in reproducing
the x-rays. Somebody would think that that was your job, or something.
Roger L Raiford, M.D.
Quite a compliment! The other cool thing is that they gave me my pins to keep Wish they would have washed them off first. Just kidding! (Photo comming soon.)
Well, after 3 weeks on crutches, I'm back up andwalking around, still a bit of a limp if I don't concentrate on walking with even strides. I'm working out walking on the treadmill, and can't wait to get back on the climbing walls (By March the bone will be fully healed and I can put stress on it.) Here's the 5-week x-rays of the holes filling in:
On the first picture, you can see the shafts and the spots where the heads of the screws were. This will all fill in and smooth over. The second (inside view) shot features the imprint of the screw threads still visable at one end, and the three points of entry (three dark spots) into the bone at the other end.
Well, that's the way thestory goes. I'll be getting a digital camera soon, and be including pictures of the doc, the x-ray tech, and the removed screws when I do! So make a bookmark and stop back by later!