Fun...

[karpiel]

Displaced tibial plateau fracture, another part of the plateau crushed and a fracture running almost the full length of the tibia. Surgery in a week and if things go well I can weight it in 3-6 months.

Woot.

[OSECS]

Displaced tibial plateau fracture, another part of the plateau crushed and a fracture running almost the full length of the tibia. Surgery in a week and if things go well I can weight it in 3-6 months.

Woot.

Fuck !! That sucks man, good karma for you hopefully in the upcoming weeks.

[SponsoredByDuctTape]

Tibial Plateau fracture vet myself, although mine wasn't as bad as yours. I had a displaced fracture (Schatzker grade 4 (out of 6)), torn medial and lateral meniscus, torn MCL, and ACL spine avulsion. If you have any questions or anything, shoot me a PM.

[splat]

Ouch. Don't go overboard on the flip side of all this and reinjure.
Read the pre-surgery threads for good advice.
Happy healing.

[karpiel]

Brother in-law is sending me his xbox 360 + games next week, ordered forearm crutches from amazon and I have a relative as a 24/7 helper for the next few months.

Any other recommendations?

[Lawless]

Your leg's gonna look like mine soon! I'm 5 weeks out right now. Welcome to the club. I started aquatherapy last week which has been pretty nice. Basically doing some gentle exercise in a therapy pool. I was fortunate that my ligaments stayed attached to the bone, but the bone attached to my ACL pulled out and is now being held be a few screws and some cadaver bone installed. My doc says about 12 weeks with no weight bearing as long as everything heals well. Do what your doc tells you and stay positive! Let me know if you have any questions or want to compare notes.


Before Surgery

[karpiel]

Talked to surgeon today, he said best case is I get 80% from my knee for ~20 years before it needs replacing. He also said that with how mine is to realisticly expect 2 years of use from it.

Joy.

[karpiel]

Also update on what is actually wrong.

Small fracture running down the tib, small part of the plateau is actually displaced and fragmented, the bad part is the portion that was pulverized, basically no cartilage left there and they have to rebuild the bone the best they can with cadaver bone. My pain as I type this is pretty much the worst pain I have ever been in, even with my prescription painkillers.

[mtnbikerskierchick]

I'm really sorry to hear about all of this for you! What a bummer I hope that their diagnosis is not as bad as they say. My best wishes are for you!

[karpiel]

Can't see much in this one.

[Lawless]

So, have you had your surgery yet? I wouldn't put too much faith in a doctors pre-op opinion on how well you'll be able to use your knee/leg in the future. He hasn't even tried to fix it yet. It seems like maybe some doctors give you the worst case scenario just to prepare you for what might happen. If he tells you you'll be fine and you aren't, you'd be pissed, but if he tells you you're never going to walk again and then you're skiing next year, you're going to be psyched. My doc also mentioned a knee replacement when I came out of surgery, but hasn't mentioned it since. Everything's healing well so far, so I'm hoping those words don't come up any time soon.

[karpiel]

Just got back, surgery went great. He fixed my meniscus, found a chunk of cartilage and a few chunks of bone. Expecting 90% ROM with 80% stability or whatever, but he has no idea whether or not the bit of cartilage will do any good. If it works it could be 20 years, if not it could be 2.

Loads of pain right now of course. They set me up in a room overnight with some waste of air that kept pulling his IV out and shitting himself I was so close to going over and ending him. No sleep as the alarms were going off nonstop. Insurance is covering the surgery which is a bonus. It fucking hurts when I pee.

Yours looks so much more impressive.

[OSECS]

Hang in there man !!

[karpiel]

9 screws, so close together.

[Lawless]

Good to get surgery out of the way. Now it's just a matter of sitting around and not going crazy.

Has your doc said anything about bending your knee? I've been in a brace now for close to 7 weeks with it locked out at 0 and 0. I've bent it underwater at therapy, but can only get 20-30 degrees out of it so far.

[LightRanger]

Echo what lawless said about the pre-op prognosis. My tib-fib wasn't as bad as yours but the ortho in Truckee who did the surgery told me walking in eight, and running by mid-summer. I was still mostly on crutches at twelve weeks, and I sure as fuck can't run right now.

Keep up your left brother.

[karpiel]

Good to get surgery out of the way. Now it's just a matter of sitting around and not going crazy.

Has your doc said anything about bending your knee? I've been in a brace now for close to 7 weeks with it locked out at 0 and 0. I've bent it underwater at therapy, but can only get 20-30 degrees out of it so far.

I've been bending mine since I was moved from the post op inspection room thing. He told me to bend it as much as I want, just no weight. He said I should be hitting 90* in 3 weeks with my CPM. At least 4 half hour sessions per day in it.

[mtnbikerskierchick]

Glad to hear surgery went well! Best of luck with the rest of the recovery too!

What did the doc do with the cartilage?

[karpiel]

Glad to hear surgery went well! Best of luck with the rest of the recovery too!

What did the doc do with the cartilage?

As far as I could tell he stuck it back or something, everything is still pretty damn fuzzy but I remember him saying it was so beaten up it may not recover.

[Lawless]

He said I should be hitting 90* in 3 weeks with my CPM. At least 4 half hour sessions per day in it.

Woah, what's that thing? Apparently when I did mine the bone that holds the ACL in my plateau pulled out and my doc wanted the bone to start healing back into place before I put stress on it. I think that's why he won't let me bend it outside of the pool.

It's all down hill from surgery. Each day out you feel a little better. You just need to stay positive. Laugh when something so simple is really difficult to you, smile when people ask you how you're doing. You're going to get frustrated at things, but it doesn't help anyone if you get angry at it. 12 weeks seems like a long time right now, but once you figure out how to do the things you need to get done, it goes pretty quick. How well you take care of things right now can have a huge impact on how this injury effects you long term.

[karpiel]

Right now I'm just glad it stopped burning when I pee.

[Lawless]

Right now I'm just glad it stopped burning when I pee.

Dude, that doesn't sound like a problem associated with your leg. Might want to get that checked out.

[PDS]

It sounds like you had some sort of O.A.T.S treatment for your cartilage. Anything to do with cartilage is a funny branch of medicine. In that the results are to some extent inconclusive. A doctor recently told me, "In 20 years, doctors will be laughing at how surgeons deal with cartilage today."

Hang in there and stop getting those Carson City specials.

[karpiel]

Yea, that sounds right. The surgeon told me that the whole thing had to be rigged together in a funny way he had never done before.


Up to 75* flexion and 0* extension. Pain waaaay down. 2 months 29 days till I can weight it.


Still getting hit hard on occasion with the depression and anger. I'm sure that will be the hardest part, dealing with the new reality of what I can I can't do.

[karpiel]

Lookin good!