Poor little whale!

I broke my left ankle in December. Well, let me elaborate on that. I slipped while walking on ice down our steep driveway. My right foot slid forward, but my left was on solid ground and did not follow along. As my body went forward, my ankle disclocated, the end of my tibia broke off and the end punctured through the tissues on the inside of my ankle. It was the fibula fracture that was the worst. It broke at an angle. The only good thing was that when the puncture happened, my foot and ankle went completely numb for weeks!

I sat on the frozen, icy driveway for 45 minutes between waiting for the ambulance and then having them evaluate me and try to stablilize my ankle enough so my foot wasn't flopping side to side. I remember riding in the ambulance and not being able to stop shivering. Even as I warmed up my body kept trembling. I found out that I had a touch of shock. Once they got an IV in me at the ER and they gave me a little sedative, the trembling stopped. The doctors knoced me out, put everything back into place, then splinted me and sent me home. On our way out of the hospital, a woman came up to me that was in the next bed with her husband and told me how "cool" it was when they were working on me. She said I was talking right along and then all of a sudden I just stopped talking and she could hear all the bones snapping as they put everything back into place. I'm glad I added a little excitement to their visit!

Nine days later I had surgery to stablize the fibula. The tibia would heal on its own. There is a plate with six screws up along the bone, as well as one long screw to hold the bones together since I also tore all of the ligaments from the bone. Six weeks more of non-weight bearing, and then, finally, I was able to start walking on it. It came along pretty well until two months ago when I started having quite a bit of pain out of the blue, so back to the surgeon I went. Turns out I may have to have the hardware removed now, but first I'm going to try resting it a bit more and see if that helps.

If you look closely, you can see that the long screw has broken in the middle of my tibia. That's actually a good thing since it gives me more movement. The problem seems to be the lower one or two screws. They are the painful ones. It feels like someone has kicked me in the ankle bone most of the time.

Now, this brings me to the ugly scar bit. Dr. K had to cut directly through my Right Whale tattoo! If it looks like more surgery is imminent, I will have to live with it for now, but if surgery is not in my future, I will have to go and have my poor whale fixed up, if possible. Does anyone out there know if scar tissue is tattooable?

Sorry for the blurriness. I was trying to hold the camera at an angle and take the picture myself.