Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Surgery and a haircut



I had surgery on the leg again on the 3rd. All went well with about 4 hours under the knife. The doc removed the plate on my Fibula and all of it's associated screws. The nail (rod) was replaced with a slightly larger, 14 mm dia vs the 12 mm that was in my tibia, nail made from titanium (Ti). The doc found some studies that show that Ti resists infection slightly better than the stainless steel that was in my leg.

This is all of the hardware, below, that you see in the x-ray above!
The two screws that are broken below are the two in the bottom of my tibia above.

So overall the surgery went GREAT I had some trouble in the recovery room with pain and dosing of my pain meds. I spent 4 days in the hospital and I had an interesting roommate. Jeremy was a recovering heroin addict that was just a total character. He kept me company and I helped to encourage him as he looked forward to a new life, a clean life. I pray that he gets the help, treatment, and new life that he so desperately needs. On a lighter note he kept calling Christie my "girlfriend" even though we told him we were married and she is my wife. So it became the running joke to not tell my wife that my girlfriend had been there to visit me also. We watched the Seahawks game on Saturday together and hooted and hollered at the TV watching the Seahawks kick the Redskins arse!

When I got home I decided to cut my hair. My grandfather, M.C. Lockwood, always had the craziest wild hair that stuck up all over the place like it had a mind of it's own. Christie had taken to calling my hair "crazy grandpa" hair... So Christie got the scissors and clippers out and let Abigael have a go with the scissors.

They cut my length down and then Christie buzzed me down to a "no guard" length with the clippers. I want to keep my beard for awhile and I like the look of buzzed head and full beard. Christie says I look like the character on the old magnetic face creator, Wooly Willy.

Off topic, I have a meeting set up in early February with the city of Tacoma to start the preliminary planning process for my idea of a multi-use trail system with a mountain bike focus in the Wapato Hills greenspace park. I am also receiving a great deal of donated help from my father's enterprise Trails Unlimited. I have a vision for a true trail system similar to the Tapeworm, the Colonnade, Banner Forest, or Lake sawyer/Henry's Ridge to be built and maintained by local users to allow the citizens of Tacoma to have a unique area to ride mountain bikes in the city!


Late Edit: For those not familiar with WHY I had to have surgery it is to repair a nasty tib-fib fracture I sustained back in August 2005 from getting hit by a car while riding my bicycle. For the full story click here.... and here... and here... and here... and finally my poor destroyed bike!

5 comments:

The Old Bag said...

OH MY GOD!

All that came outta your leg?!?

Good luck and heal quickly!

Brandon said...

Thanks alot TOB!

This time I have "the feeling" that this will be it I WILL BE HEALED FOR GOOD!

Joe Partridge said...

Good God man! I'm walking with a limp from just looking at those pictures.

Here's wishing you a Speedy recovery!

Anonymous said...

Dang Brandon! I've waffled for years about having my knee scoped. Just looking at the pics makes me feel like a wuss. I wish you a speedy and full recovery.

Brandon said...

Thank you to all that have wished me well! I just know that this time will be the last and I WILL be healed 100%!