Current Status: Monday, Dec. 18

I’m walking fine. Still need a little PT to strengthen the leg and resilience.  But basically, I’m 100%.  I’m CLOSING this live blogging.  It’s just history now.

——–  Live Blog  —————–

Sunday, Dec. 17

As the week progressed, I walked further and further.  Yesteday I walked up to La Comer, a grocery store three blocks away.  I’m a little sore, but but fine.  Coming down the stairs was oddly uncomfortable.  Thank goodness for hand rails!

Monday, Dec. 11

Today I started walking w/o crutches.  It was strangely weird; I was unsteady, a bit afraid, afraid of re-injuring the leg, or stumbling or something.  I carried around a single crutch — not to use it, but just to have it.  Weird.

Tuesday, Nov. 21

I got the green light from the doctor today to start some weight-bearing on my leg — 25% this week, add 25% more/week and schedule a follow up appointment with him at week 4, when presumably I’ll be at 100%.  In the meantime … do lots of physical therapy to strengthen, increase range of motion/flexibility, etc. The end of that process — week 4 — is December 18th, when daughter Molly’s family visits.  Auspicious sign, no?!

Saturday, Nov. 18

I drove to the hospital’s “Imaging Center” to get some X-rays for Dr. Mangino’s consult with me on Tuesday.  I love a la carte medicine: I walk in and ask for “some x-rays that Dr. Mangino will need.”  They know what pictures to take, charge me 1500 MXN (about $90 USD) and create these, which they send me and Dr. Mangino online (user: wayne@willisdomain.com; pass: 964MpeBX),

Monday, Nov. 6

A big visit with Dr. Mangino today saw some major milestones:

• The “open wound” is now completely closed.  No more bandages!  Stitches solid.  See picture. Showers without plastic bags on my leg.
• The discolored skin is slowly flaking off and will fix itself soon enough. (No picking, Wayne!)
• No weight-bearing yet.  Two more weeks, ending with an x-ray, and then “we’ll see” from there.  (Probably “yes some weight-bearing.”)
• Start physical therapy to increase range of motion and flexibility.  3x/week for three weeks.
• Okay to start driving once my range of motion and sensitivity to the pedals is adequate.  This is a big deal to me — it will allow me to travel locally to appointments and to take Debi Nightingale out for a celebratory dinner.
• I’m feeling great!  I’m very lucky.

Monday, Oct. 30, 1100

I took the new knee scooter out for a spin — up to the gym and back — maybe 400 yards total.  Very do-able.  You just need to move across driveway drains (like this one) at an angle!  Curbs present a problem, but I think I have a solution there.

The wound continues to get better.  I still can’t put weight on it and can’t carry anything on the crutches.  Debi Nightingale continues helping with all that.  But for that, life is getting back to normal and I’m at about 90%.

Wednesday, 25 Oct, 0800

Doctor visit on Monday afternoon was positive.  Stitches out.  Good feedback re: progress.  One more week until knee scooter (which I’m looking forward to for increased range.)   Nutritional supplements to help bone heal.  Two weeks until an x-ray and clearance to begin weight-bearing if the x-ray looks good.  Boot for three months-ish.  Six weeks until possible driving.  ALL subject to continued improvement.  I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Sunday, 22 Oct, 0800

The most recent challenge was Hurricane Norma, which landed about 20-30 miles from here as a Category 1 storm and passed us overnight.  Happily, we only lost power for a while.  It’s still windy and raining, but the worst is over (I hope).

Thursday, 19 Oct, 0800

On the mend, slowly.  Wound surface area is down about 40%, less angry.  No pain meds needed.  Still not feeling physically strong.  Range of walking-on-crutches is still about 100 yards only.   Now … dealing with an impending hurricane / tropical storm Norma.

Tuesday, 17 Oct, 0800

I still feel about the same as a few days ago, but the doctor said the swelling is going down, the wound looks better (and remains uninfected) and it will be a gradual path back from here.  Also “don’t worry about the bruises; that’s to be expected and will clear up on its own.”  No use of the scooter is allowed for two more weeks.

Saturday, 14 Oct, 1500

Some good news:  My new knee scooter arrived from Mercado Libre.  Debi found a YouTube video showing assembly, and we got that done.  The doctor advises not using it until the staple stitches on my kneed are removed (which I’m hoping will happen this coming week.)

I’m able to reduce the amount of Tylenol I’m taking.  (Other than the initial fracture, this trip has been surprisingly pain-free).  Yesterday I was tired.  Today is better.  This is frustratingly slow mending.  ;(

Thursday, 12 Oct, 1900

Very tough day.  Went to the doctor’s office to change bandages.  He was delayed in surgery, so had to wait 2 hours, which was hard.  The leg is still swollen and inflamed … somewhat expected at this age.  Debi had a bit of a gauntlet to get all the necessary prescriptions.  (Mexican pharmacies are all small with limited inventory.  She had to go to three different ones to get what we needed.)

Wednesday, 11 Oct, 1900

Home for a full day reveals all the logistical changes and serious limitations.  I can’t get my own coffee, as moving on crutches with a hot cup of coffee doesn’t work.  I’ve ordered a knee scooter; that should help.  Keeping all the meds in order requires time.  I got through all the emails and now can see all that needs doing.

Tuesday, 10 Oct, 1900

The care I received in H+ was superlative, and I’ll write about that separately.  But today, their Admin Offices sucked, taking 4 hours to process my discharge.

Dr. Mangino met with me at about noon and gave me discharge instructions, answered questions, and tossed some cold water on my hopes for a fast recovery.  “No weight bearing for 4 weeks” was the major takeaway.  Talk of a knee scooter.  Prescriptions for a lot of drugs, including significant doses of oral antibiotics.  (Clearly, the risk of infection is a major complication that concerns him.)

The bandage is comprised of some antiseptic wipes placed over the open part of the wound, then some sterile gauze, then wrapped in some Ace bandages to provide coverage and compression.  Until the swelling goes down, we can’t put on “the boot,” a big, padded plastic cast that goes on and off and helps protect the fracture while it heals.

I’ll bitch about how the Admin offices held up my discharge for over 4 hours separately.  Needless to say, getting home at about 5;30p was VERY welcome.  Finally, a great dinner!   And Debi moved all my stuff so I could easily navigate on crutches.

Monday, 9 Oct, 1600

I met with the surgeon, who is a well-regarded, mid-career orthopedic surgeon, Geraldo Mangino). Dr. Mangino was trained in Mexico but did a post-doc fellowship in the US, specializing in sports injuries.  I’m really impressed with him and count my blessings that H+ Hospital had him on call to see me on a Saturday (immobilizing the fracture) and again on Sunday for surgery.

Dr. Mangino changed my dressing and explained more about the hematoma, which was more understandable when I saw the injury on Monday:

Even though I was super-eager to get home, after looking at this, I agreed to stay for another day to have the antibiotics.  “If the wound gets infected, Wayne, it’s a serious thing: We would have to go back in — another hospitalization.”   No bueno, indeed.

Sunday, 8 Oct, 1500

The surgery was successful and the doctor believes I could be putting some small weight on the leg within a week and be free and clear in six weeks or so.  [This turned out to be some “motivated hearing” on my part and not accurate.]

When I met with the surgeon on Monday, he showed me the X-rays post-op.  I asked for copies.  He gave me his card and said “Contact me on WhatsApp and I’ll send them to you.  [I love Mexican healthcare’s direct access to doctors!]    Here’s what he sent:

He told me that the injury was more traumatic than first appeared and that during the surgery he had to remove a large hematoma and deal with significant inflammation and swelling of the surrounding tissues.  He said the surgery lasted longer than normal because they had challenges in “reducing” the fracture to where they could bolt the pieces into place and fully stabilize the break.

He was worried about infection in the site where the hematoma had pushed up and partially through the skin.  He recommended, strongly, that I stay in the hospital another day so that they could continue stronger intravenous antibiotics.

Saturday, 7 Oct, 0830

While walking up the phase 2 driveway Saturday morning, I thought the desert garden looked unusually pretty, and I wanted to take a picture of it. And the picture would look better, I thought, if I climbed up on the small wall next to the stairway coming up from the driveway. It’s about 70 cm above the ground level of the Cactus Garden. When I stood on the wall, I lost my balance and jumped down to the desert garden, landing wrong.

The veteran of many basketball-sprained ankles, I self-diagnosed a sprained ankle.  But the pain was much worse so I decided to get it x-rayed. LUCKILY, Debi was able to locate and bring me some crutches from our garage.  And my neighbor Darlene was driving by at that very moment and she gave me a ride up to the H+ Hospital ER.

The X-ray showed two fractures — a spiral fracture on the tibia, and a lateral fracture on the fibula.  The “trauma doctor” they called in recommended putting a rod in the tibia to stabilize it and a small plate on the damage to the fibula. Happily, they were able to schedule the surgery for Sunday.