Six weeks post tib/fib open fracture

NSFW Warning: Photo includes bone sticking out!

I've been lurking here since my break and thought I would share.

On July 27th, I took my kids to the local trampoline Park. I didn't think anything of it; I wanted to have fun and let the kids burn some energy.

I decided to jump by the basketball hoops and play a little ball—bad idea. I jumped, landed on a basketball, heard a loud pop, and fell.

At first, I thought I had broken the trampoline. Until the guy next to me started freaking out. Upon looking down, my foot was going how it shouldn't.

EMS arrived, and I lifted myself while they put a sheet underneath me. They used the sheet to pull me off the trampoline and onto the gurney.

I had no pain until I reached the hospital. Once the pain set in at the hospital, it was hard to stop. I'm a big guy, 6’ 4” and 300 pounds. The nurse finally mixed up a cocktail of meds that knocked me out for 45 minutes.

They took me into surgery to clean the wound and stabilize my leg. It was supposed to be a quick surgery. This all happened in my small town in southern New Mexico. I moved myself onto the surgery table, and off to sleep I went.

Here's the wild part. I went into surgery at roughly 11 pm on Thursday. I woke up Friday afternoon in a hospital in El Paso, Texas.

During surgery, my foot went dead. It was as white as a sheet. The doctor stabilized my leg with external fixtures, and I was flown to El Paso, Texas, since it is a level one trauma center, and they had a vascular surgeon on staff in case there was damage to my blood vessels.

I waited for another surgery all of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Monday morning, I finally went into surgery.

The surgeons put a tibia nail (a metal rod the length of my tibia) in. I have two screws below my knee and two above my ankle. I'm also missing a large piece of my tibia.

The fibula was also broken in two places. Because it isn't weight-bearing, they elected to allow it to heal on its own.

I was weight bearing as tolerated as soon as I left the hospital. Now I'm six weeks out, going to physical therapy, and have been trying to walk again.

I still use a walker at home, crutches in public, and a wheelchair at the store or anywhere else that is too big for me to get around quickly.

As a bonus, the trampoline Park called and offered for my family to come back for free. I don't think we’ll be taking the offer.