X-Rays

To the 2016-11 Update...

Here's the biggie.
The image below is a preview of the "show". Click the image to load up a rotating view of the femur before it was reconstructed. This image type is easier to understand than the X-Rays. It was constructed from a CT scan and converted into this.




Right femur - front of leg - post reconstruction.
About 13 screws and one 10" x 1" plate




Right femur - side view




Left leg below the knee - fibula - broken at the top end (somewhere in the circle). Left to self heal




Right foot (screws and plate are from the 2001 accident). In the green circle is a fracture of the heel (calcaneous), pre-repair.




Head out to the garage and pick out your favorite cordless drill...Be nice to the patient, make sure the battery is fully charged. Reach over to that extra box of long stainless steel screws...Point and shoot three times... Fixed!




Right foot, fifth metatarsal.
Fracture of some sort. No surgery, it will self heal. There is no pain but I can tell something is odd - that toe feels a bit different than the other nine.



The right leg, between the ankle, femur, and calcaneous has something like three plates and thirty screws. Now to see if I can get through the airport's metal detector...

2016-11 Update

Foremost, I write this with a bit of a chuckle of humor.

A couple Friday afternoon's ago I was chatting with a client who was looking at knee replacement surgery. The conversation turned to my knee work. I commented that the Jeep is having a hard time replacing a motorcycle for sight seeing and that I could see another motorcycle before too long. I left that client and ten minutes later arrived at the next appointment - parking next to a BMW GS in the full parking lot.


 
I opened the car door and swung my left leg out and onto the ground and was in the process of moving the right leg when something "pop'd / changed" in the knee/leg mid-swing.

DANG-IT!

I barely bring up the subject and the body's right there saying - nope - don't even think about another motorcycle.

Sigh.

Range of motion is limited to about 90 degrees (it had significantly greater range prior to the "pop"). I can stand & walk w/o much change but something inside did change.

Two to four years back I encountered a similar change / pop at family house. I was standing on the right leg, bending over to my right and it did the same - some quick pop/change but otherwise no significant disablement. I do know the screws near the top of the leg's side plate have pulled out of the femur as I could feel the top of the plate moving towards/away from the bone as the knee would flex. That flex motion had become less noticeable over the past couple years such that I would not notice it happening.

With a chiro adjustment a couple days later I asked the good Doc if he could take a couple X-Rays so I could see if anything changed.  No visible change from this event - but change there is - the screw from the top of the plate has come out of the plate and is trapped between the bone and tissue. The good Doc believes, for the distance it has traveled, it likely has been on the move for a couple years or more. That might coincide with the first pop I noticed.

Change for this event - unknown. As range of motion is less than desired, I'll give it time and see if it returns to normal. A formal ortho appointment is likely to happen. Perhaps I'll have a knee replacement earlier than anticipated?







Right femur - side view