Today I met a fellow fib-tib ankle fracture survivor. Unbelievably, he works in the same office as I do. I had heard there was a dude crutching around in a boot several weeks ago. I had no idea what his injury was.
In November, he fell off some scaffolding and received a nice open compound fibula and tibia fracture in his right ankle. Yep, his bones were sticking out. Mine where nicely contained within my skin. He didn't have a pulse in his foot after the injury, so he too was at risk of losing a limb.
It gets worse.
He broke his talus bone in three places, he had three surgeries, and he was in an external fixator for seven weeks. One of his surgeries was necessary to remove two infections. Because of this complication, they never had a chance to fix his talus fracture. The fragments set further apart. His talus bone is now larger than before the accident.
There were only two things I could think of about his injury that was not as bad as mine: 1) he didn't have 3 million bone fragments at the surface of his ankle joint, and 2) he didn't have any nerve damage.
Many of our experiences with this injury have been identical. In an odd way, it was pretty awesome to meet someone else that's suffered a similarly amazing injury. It was like I was looking into the future a few months from now.
Oh, and both of us agreed that our favorite dinosaur was the Velociraptor.
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