The Hardware

We've spent the last few hours taking a detailed look at the erector set hardware extracted from my powerful snowboarding ankle. Here's an X-Ray before the hardware broke for reference.

Here's the tibia plate. The part of the plate I'm holding onto ran in between my tibia and fibula inside of the leg. The part at the bottom held one of the larger tibia fragments over my talus bone. It was just under where my skin transplant once lived. I didn't see any "Made In China" marks on this plate.

I haven't been able to tell how the fibula plate broke yet. I'd be interested to see which way the metal was bent. The piece at the top of my hand was at the bottom of my fibula.

As you can see, this plate cannot bare weight. It's extremely thin.

Here are two screws that broke inside my tibia. I'm not sure how many screws broke originally. It was at least three. They had to leave three of the screw ends inside my tibia since it would require the removal of too much bone to retrieve them.

Here's an example of a screw end that got left behind.

Here are six of the fibula plate screws. Funny story: my Dad immediately lost one or two of the fibula screws when he opened the bag up earlier. We have not recovered them yet. I'm sure they'll end up in Spunky's stomach at some point in the future.

Here are three of the screws that were holding my bottom tibia fragment together. It surprised me to find out that they're hollow. But you have to keep in mind that this hardware is not designed to hold any of my weight. Its sole purpose was to hold bone together while it heals and forms a solid structure for carrying my computer scientist body. Because the bones never healed, I fatigued the metal to the point of breaking.

I'm really thankful to my surgery team for getting these parts to me. Josie offered to hand them over to Brooke right after my surgery on Monday, but they weren't clean, so Brooke refused! Josie had to sneak out my disgusting hardware in her purse and sterilize them later at the clinic. Now that's patient dedication!

Since I've been home, the pin sites have started to bother me more than they have been up to this point. Josie warned us that this would probably happen now that I'm moving around more and unable to keep my ankle as elevated as before. But we're prepared with plenty of pain meds, pillows, and Netflix movies.