Bike Crash – The Surgeries

WARNING: Photos in the links are really gross, so if you don’t like looking at the insides of people, or swollen limbs, I’d recommend not clicking on them. I just thought I would put them there so interested people could look.

All in all, I had 5 surgeries. There was that first one that lasted 10 hours, and was incredibly brutal. I learned yesterday, that my leg was without circulation for about 8 hours. I am so incredibly amazed that they were able to save it, since it was basically dead. The vascular team did an arterial bypass of the torn open part of my femoral artery. They went in there, cut a hole in my thigh and my calf, took some veins from my right calf, sewed the end to the broken artery, stuffed it through my knee, and then sewed the other end on the other side of the damage. After I got blood flow back, the orthopedic team put the external fixation on, and opened up that fasciotomy to release the pressure, from the compartment syndrome. They also put a wound VAC in the fasciotomy.

Two days after that first surgery, they went back in, took out the wound VAC, debrided the wound, and closed it all back up. I don’t remember going to sleep for this one, either. I think they put me to sleep before I got to the operating room.

Then I waited the weekend, and had another debridement of the fasciotomy.

The third surgery, they actually closed up the fasciotomy. They had had to wait so long, because my leg was still very swollen. They feared that they would have to do a skin graft, to close up the wound. However, they did not have to do that. The swelling had gone down enough, so that they could just slowly ease the sides back together, and close it up. It’s just a straight line, now. They did, however, have to remove some dead tissue, including 10% of the muscle that bends my big toe. I felt so much better after that surgery, though, because the big hole in my leg was closed up. I got out of bed for the first time.

Then I waited, for about a week, and had my final, and potentially the worst, surgery. This was the one where they removed the external fixation, and put in an internal fixation. They had to open up an incision that snakes around my knee, and goes down my shin. They were very happy, because they were able to match it up with the place where the bone came through my leg. Then they had to remove a bunch of shattered bone, and grafted in a bit of cadaver bone. Then they screwed it all together, with tons of titanium screws, and a couple plates. (I will post x-rays later. It looks really cool.) Then they sewed me all up.

Unfortunately, because of the grafting, and other issues, that final surgery took much longer than they had hoped, 6 hours, actually, and recovery for me was really hard. The pain was incredibly intense, and I got out late at night, which was incredibly difficult for me. That night I had one of those buttons again, but I did not enjoy it.