Pine Belt Pacers Forum

For those of you that have not heard, my father fell off a ladder on Wednesday and suffered a compound fracture in his ankle. He broke his tibia and fibula and has already had one surgery. It's anticipated he will be in the hospital for a couple of days to make sure there is no infection from the open wound. There will be additional surgeries, but we don't know how many.

WOW! Sounds pretty bad. Hope all goes well. What hospital?

Hollie is in FG, room 3052. He will probably go home tomorrow (Friday). I haven't yet spoken with the DR today, so I don't have many details regarding the plan for more surgery, etc.

Stay off old ladders!!!

So sorry about Hollie's accident. Let him know that we are thinking about him and hope that his additional surgeries go smoothly. Keep us posted.

Hollie is home and so far has no evidence of infection. The Dr thinks that he may not need additional surgeries. As he said, Hollie now has about a pound of metal in his ankle.

Before going in for surgery, we had told the Dr about how active Hollie was with walking, running and biking and asked him to try his best to help him be able to return to those activities. He said that it was a severe injury with broken tibia, fibula, lots of bone fragments, and soft tissure injury and that he would not know what he was facing until he started the surgery.

Yesterday, he told Hollie that he probably would not be able run, but he should be able to return to race walking and, definitely, to biking. The Dr also told him that he was going to have to consider his healing process more like a marathon than a sprint and that there were going to be many steps in the process, the first of which is to prevent infection.

He will probably not be back to weight bearing for 4-6 months. In the meantime, he will not be casted until they are sure there is no infection and that the injured tissure (open fracture) was healing properly.

I think Hollie was pleased to hear that it wasn't as bad as we had at first thought. He is in a great deal of pain and they will last awhile. He is pretty much sedated and will be for several days. We see the Dr again on Monday to continue to check for infection.

I'll keep you posted.

What a terrible fracture! I am glad he is at home. If there is anything we can do, let us know. Thanks, Audrey and Charles.

We saw the Dr today and I got to see the wound for the first time since the injury. Actually, it looks good, with no evidence of infection. In order to make the repair there are about 8 inches of stitches on each side of the ankle. Screws were placed through both the tibia and fibula as he fractured both bones and they were also separated. He also has plates around/in the area.

Hollie almost fainted when he looked at it. Me---I will have the job of cleaning the area once a day.

Hollie has been given the go ahead to use a wheelchair and the walker, so he will now be able to get around better.

The next appointment is May 8 and he'll be x-rayed again and if that looks OK and there is still no infection, he will get a hard cast.

Something that was encouraging happened when we were leaving the Dr's office. A huge man, using a cane came up to talk to Hollie. We learned that he had been in a motorcycle accident 15 weeks ago. He had multiple fractures and had spent 3 weeks flat on his back. Today he was using a cane and walking pretty well. He said he went from bed to wheelchair to walker to crutches to the cane. I think this helped Hollie to see that there are going to be specific steps in the healing process.

Before today's appointment, he had said he thought he'd get to move to crutches. I knew there was no way that was going to happen and I think after he actually saw the stitches, swelling, etc, he now knows he's got a long way to go. It's just going to take time to heal.

Today, I got to use those first aid skills that I learned and actually taught many years ago. As per Dr instructions, I changed the dressing and swabbed the stitch area of Hollie's ankle. I know he was concerned that I was going to hurt him. Yesterday he had nearly fainted when he looked at the wound. Today, I had him put a towel over his head so he would not see it. I must say, I performed very well. It's amazing how those skills, even though they have not been used in many years, come back. I was able to put the bandage back just about like it was when he left the Dr yesterday.

Last night, Robin brought over a wheelchair and Hollie is now able to get around the house so much better. I imagine in a day or two we may venture out. The problem is getting up and down the few steps at the entry to the house.

I just realized that I haven't updated Hollie's progress as he recovers from the ankle fracture. About 10 days ago, he had the stitches removed and has been doing minimal foot flexion and extension 3 times a day. Kim has observed his range of motion and thinks that he is making good progress.

In about a week, he will be xrayed again and if everything is looking good, he will begin physical therapy. He is still non-weight bearing, using a walker and a wheelchair to get around the house. He will not have a cast, but will continue to use the boot until he's able to be "weight-bearing" without the walker.

Thank goodness for his Corvette! There is so much leg room and it sits so low to the ground, that he is able to drive it. So, he usually goes out for an hour or so each day. While he's gone, I feel the same way I felt when Chrissy and Robin were first learning to drive.

It's amazing how well Hollie is healing. It has been a little over 5 weeks since he fell off a ladder and suffered an open fracture of the left ankle (tibia, fibula, and some more bones). Yesterday we had an appointment and they x-rayed the injured area. He has a plate and 12 screws in the ankle area. On the x-ray, you can barely see where the breaks occurred. Beginning today, he is allowed to put 25 pounds of pressure on the foot. In order to get a feel for that, he stood with the walker and put the foot on bathroom scales and pushed down so that it registered 25 pounds. So, now he is able to use the walker without having to hop.

He was hoping that he would be able to start swimming, but the place where the bones protruded through the skin has not completely healed. The area must still be painted with iodine, wrapped in an ace bandage and he is still wearing the heavy boot. He is doing PT at home---flexing and extending the foot and tracing the alphabet for rotation exercise. He is also going to the Y and doing upper body weights. Next week he will start riding the recumbent bike, working up from 10 minutes with no resistance.

The surgeon is very pleased with how well he is healing, with the alignment of the bones, and with his range of motion. We go back in three weeks. This recovery is going to be just like the Dr said---a marathon, not a sprint.

I didn't realize that it has been months since I updated everyone on Hollie's recovery from the severe open fracture of the left ankle that he suffered back in April. Here's a bit of good news:

Today Hollie attempted to racewalk. This was his first attempt since suffering the open fracture of the ankle back in April. He now has 12 screws and steel plates in the ankle area and I was very surprised when I saw him moving at a pretty good clip. He did about a half mile in three intervals. I think that's really good, although he was disappointed that he was *only* doing a 15 min pace. He said it did hurt, but a lot less than he had thought it would. He's been biking about 20 mile every other day and now he's planning to start walking and biking on alternate days.