Ankle surgery

Dale had surgery last week to repair the damage done by his skiing accident in Leavenworth. He initially saw a sports medicine doctor at the UW Medical Center, a great guy who is part of the doctor team that treats the Seahawks. However, even this illustrious doc said Dale's injury was "above his pay grade" (that's probably quite a pay grade) and sent him to be evaluated by one of the best orthopedic surgeons in town, over at Harborview. The Harborview surgeon explained that although the only fracture is to the fibula, the real problem is the ankle: Dale tore the connective tissue that hold his ankle together, and some of that goes up his leg between his fibula and tibia, such that yanking on it broke the fibula. Ow.

We spent Monday of last week at Harborview, going from one pre-surgery appointment to another: consultation with the surgeon and his resident, new x-rays, vascular imaging to make sure there were no blood clots in his legs, and a pre-anesthesia education session. Tuesday we waited at the hospital all day for the surgery (during which poor Dale could not eat or drink!); he went in about 6pm and was done at 9pm. Apparently reassembling the 3-D puzzle that is the human ankle is a fairly tricky business - they eventually got it right using live CT imaging during the surgery, which is some trick. Dale had to spend one night at the hospital while he finished waking up from anesthesia, and I got him home Wednesday morning. He has pins holding his shin bones in place, which stabilizes both the ankle and the spot where the fibula is broken.

After a few days in bed Dale has been reasonably comfortable, or as comfortable as you can expect to be with one leg in a giant plaster splint thing. He doesn't need much in the way of pain meds.

He gets around pretty well using the wonderful rolling knee scooter. At home, he can do for himself, even emptying the dishwasher and making dinner for all of us once in a while. At a doctor visit last week, he zoomed ahead of me on the ramp out of the parking garage, and said, "Try to keep up!"

He'll be in this bulky splint for another week, then a cast for six weeks. At that time his left leg will be "a toothpick" (as a nurse described it); he will need extensive PT both to rebuild his leg and to break up the stiff tendons and ligaments in his ankle. We hear it hurts. But eventually (six months to a year), he'll be back on his bike and schlepping his drum gear and all that good stuff.