First Attempt at Cleaning Leg At Home

I realize I haven't updated the blog in the last few days as much as normal. This is primarily due to the two following reasons:

1. March Madness.
2. I'm trying to be more physically active.

I'm doing what I can to rebuild my endurance and gain some weight back. As of this morning I weighed in at 188 lbs. Six weeks ago, when I hit a tree, I was 220 lbs.

I can't remember if I said this before, but on our last visit to The Closer's office, we were told we could take off the splint at home and clean the leg and wounds ourselves. Brooke is trained to do wound cleaning, and for some reason, enjoys it. She just had to pick up a few things at the store to redress the wounds.

Last night was our first attempt at cleaning the leg ourselves.

How did it go? Hilariously, of course.

Remember my vasovagal post? Well, guess what? It happened last night! Awesome!

Here's the deal. I'm good at worrying. And I'm especially good at worrying about things I know nothing about, like orthopedic surgery.

You have to understand that my right leg, ankle, and foot look totally alien to me. I find it pretty difficult to look at in person. It freaks me out in its current state.

For good reason, I think. My right leg is incredibly tiny. My foot has been bleeding or leaking gross things for six weeks. The whole thing is usually hurting, especially after I'm physically active. And freakiest of all, I have zero feeling in my big toe, second toe, and the entire bottom of my foot.

Here's a comparison of my two legs. Not only is my right calf tiny, but I apparently lost the inside bony part of my ankle. That'd be the tibia. At my last doctor's visit, I asked if all of the tibia pieces they could salvage were put back where they came from.

Nope. I can't wait to try on a shoe. Hopefully that part isn't crucial to a good fit. So the Closer didn't have the best Lego pieces to work to begin with. That's on me.

You may also notice that I'm getting pretty bad foot drop. It's going to make physical therapy even more awesome.

Anyway, back to me fainting.

I was basically holding my ankle in front of my face while Brooke took the trauma scissors to the splint. I'm still draining like a maniac out of the left side of my foot, so we were trying to figure out how to get this wrapping off of my foot without taking some skin.

Here's what I saw. Only I was in the bathtub because I was going to shower with the new ankle for the first time. Now seeing this bugged me just a little bit. But when I started trying out the new ankle, that's when things got weird. I tried pushing the foot up, and I didn't make it very far.

That, in combination with all of the thoughts in my head about my freak leg, got the whole thing started. Brooke immediately got up and went into a prevent defense. All signs pointed to me fainting. I was ghost white pale (more so than normal). I was sweating. I could barely hear. I could barely talk. Oh, and I was seeing red.

Now, the good news is I didn't faint. I was seconds away. The bad news is I did throw up.

So eventually I recovered. We moved the wound cleaning operation to the bed. It's more difficult to harm myself if I faint in a bed.

Here's a good picture of the top incision and a bunch of holes in the side of my foot. The holes, where screws were inserted into my tibia internal fixator, are probably my biggest problem right now.

Brooke said these open wounds were looking better. I actually agree with her on this one. This does in fact look better. This incision was made six weeks ago.

These holes in my tibia were made six weeks ago as well for my external fixator. They look infinitely better than the three holes in my foot.

So it's probably good that I didn't go into the medical field. I'm really not capable of dealing with this injury without a trained professional -- my awesome nurse-wife. I really did marry the right person. If we have sons, it's a guarantee they'll be having similarly stupid injuries. It's in my genes.

My dad has a metal plate in his head and a wicked knee surgery scar. I think he found out recently that he might have to have a prosthetic knee sometime in the future.

I'm pretty sure he went vasovagal when he found out.