The Day I Lost My Invincibility

Sunday, January 18, 2004
Richmond Park, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Some time between and and three in the afternoon, I can't clearly recall the time.

Lots of kids on sleds and tubes sliding down the big hill.

Another hill farther up into the trees, populated by kids on snowboards.

A steep hill. An icy hill.
Seemed like a more exciting prospect considering my love of speed when it comes to sledding.
I had a big toboggan style sled that could fit two people sitting, or my entire body lying down.
The snow was especially deep as I trudged along the tree lined hill up toward the top of the hill.
Knee deep and slow.

I was wearing two pairs of pants, three pairs of socks, a couple shirts, an thick heavy coat, knee high Sorel Boots laced up tight, goggles, gloves and a hat like what you see the Russians wearing in spy movies.
Between carrying the sled and the clothing and the general trudging, I was more than a little winded by the time I reached the top of the hill. The kids on snowboards were only traveling half way down the steep incline before loosing their balance and needing to come back up for another run. I casually asked one of them if it was safe to go down. I was half joking, and only 1/10th really concerned. The rest was my general lack of attention to my surroundings as I am usually thinking of something other than where I am physically.
As the hill cleared, I surveyed the positions of the trees and the angle of the slope. It was very icy. The sun shone bright off the surface. Most of the trees were far off to the side and of no concern. Near the bottom of the hill there was one formidable tree that needed to be avoided, but with a true aim I did not see this as much of an issue to worry about.
I sat the sled down and placed my feet at the front where two indentations allowed my heels to be secured. I dug my hands into the hard, icy top layer of the snow, pushed back as far as my arms would reach and pulled hard forward as the sled launched over the edge of the hill. I grabbed the handles at the side of the sled, keeping me head up to insure I had the correct trajectory.

I was good to go.
The sound of plastic screaming over ice filled my ears.
I was moving fast! Very fast! It was a very tall and steep hill.
There was a dip and a bump three quarters of the way down.
There was no way I could have seen this from the top given the sun and the sheer whiteness of the ground.

You know that silent sound that they always use in movies right before two cars crash together? That was the sound as I launched into the air at what I could only judge at exceeding thirty miles per hour. The bump surprised me and had caused my sled to leave my body.

I was a 215 pound bullet!
The sled went off somewhere to the right.
I ejected leftward toward the very tree I had aimed away from.
Still feet first and airborne.
My left leg was the only part of my body that I couldn't pull away in time.
I was directly lined up so when I collided with the wooden giant the entirety of my foot from the toes to the heel collided. As the force of my body came behind my leg I collapsed up against my knee. I pushed off the best I could manage.
I collapsed to the right of the tree as the momentum of my ride ended.

Have you ever jumped from a reasonably high surface and landed feet first?
You know that shaky feeling it gives in your heel and bones?
That's what my leg felt like, right up into my left hip.
It didn't hurt too badly.
I tried to stand up.
No dice.
I fell right over.

I was told later that a cracking sound could be heard throughout the whole area. A park worker was inside a building nearby heard the impact and came out to investigate.

A lady who was nearby came over when she saw that I was not getting up. I told her where the people I was there with were at, and she went to get help. When my friends came over they placed me back on my sled to get me off the ground and to position my legs above my heart. Assistance was called and when the EMT wanted to get me to a hospital, I declined. I really just wanted to go home and soak in the tub. I figured I had just sprained my ankle and would be able to go back to work within a day or two. I also did not want the bill that accompanies a ride in an ambulance. They would not let me go home, so they carried me on the sled to a friends van and loaded me into the side. I felt weird crunchy movement inside my boot. Not a good sign, but I tried to ignore it as we drove to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital I was loaded into a wheelchair and waited in the emergency room. It really hurt to sit upright, but I was patient and tried to focus on other things.

When I was wheeled into the triage room I unlaced my left boot and slowly pulled it off. I was not going to let them cut it off for some silly sprain. Then the socks came off. That hurt a little more than I would have liked. The right side of my foot was swollen up like a softball and was black and green. My foot itself was cocked to the left in an inappropriate manner. They decided that I had a really severe sprain. I was sent to the area they use to process minor cases, assured that I would only be there about an hour longer.

In a cold room my wife helped me get my clothes off and change into a hospital robe. Sitting there in the chilly air was making my leg hurt even worse. After a few minutes an actual doctor started to enter the room. Seriously, he did not actually get all the way into the room before saying: "That's not a sprain, that's broken."
I then had to have a CAT scan done on my leg which included even more painful movement. I was not feeling as good as I wold have liked. After the scans and x-rays it was determined that I wold require surgery. Given the attention I was paying to the increasing pain, I did not fully grasp what was happening. I had never broken a bone in my life. No degree of recklessness on my part had any consequences.

I was taken into a room where they said they were going to perform a "reduction", which in laymen's terms means they put IV's into you, knock you out and push and prod your bones back into the shape they are supposed to be in. Apparently, even if they knock you out, your body will still scream in pain.

Later that day, print outs of the x-rays were brought to us. I had fractured all my toes, the bones in my foot, my ankle had been reduced to a big cloudy mess and my fibula had broken as well. The impact had also sheered off a bone in my knee. The doctor that was assigned to my surgery came into the room, he took one look at the printouts and exclaimed: "They didn't tell me about any of this!" Apparently, they had not properly assessed the situation. Obviously I was not going to make it back to work Monday morning.

That was Sunday.

I endured the excruciating pain until 9:45 Monday night. That was the earliest they could get me into surgery considering the type of injury. Scheduled for about four hours, it lasted nine and a half hours!
I was full of plates and screws and a pin that ran from underneath the outside of one of my toes down through a broken metatarsal. Two screws permanently embedded into two metatarsals one plate and four screws inholding the fibula in place. One plate and a number of screws reforming the bottom of my tibia. The original cartilage had been turned into a chunky mess and the bone around it pulverized. A nasty, long screw held chunk of bone together in my knee until it healed. I spent until Saturday afternoon in the hospital.

The next six months were spent under heavy pain medication and living with my leg propped up high above my heart. The simple act of getting up to go to the bathroom was so painful and exhausting that I would need to nap each time. Sleep was overall painful and sporadic. I last the majority of movement in my ankle. This led to atrophy in the calf muscle. My ankle would constantly give out. My knee sounded like a Barbie doll. The arthritis making a loud, crunchy, ratchet-like sound. The whole ball of wax was melting away in a rather painful manner.

I had two follow up surgeries just to remove the hardware as the bones healed, but it became apparent that the damage to the cartilage was permanent. Nasty arthritis was setting in as well. At the three year mark I was scheduled for a fourth surgery to remove the plate from my fibula, cut and lengthen my calf muscle, tighten the tendons in my ankle, cut out the front of my talus bone and take cartilage from my knee and pack it into the cavity in my ankle where the original cartilage once was. That's the boiled down way that I understood it anyway. The goal was to make it possible for my ankle to have more movement.
Try extending your foot up and down, then left and right. My mobility is less than half of that. It's not fun to try and walk like that.
In fact, I can no longer walk at any rate that might be considered quick. Worse, I cannot run or jump or even stay standing for longer than 30 minutes. The bone grinding and tissue swelling that happens in my knee and ankle forbids it.
The fourth surgery in January 2007 did take away much of the searing nerve pain, but within six months the cartilage moved to my ankle dissipated and the arthritis grew much more painful in my knee and ankle. To complicate matters, the stress caused by walking funny caused stress and arthritis in my other knee and chronic lower back pain.
I am scheduled for an ankle replacement in January 2008 if the pain continues to worsen. (Which it has so far.)

I've been able to maintain full time status as a student so far. I decided to go back to school for couple of reasons:
1. I can no longer properly perform any job that requires long periods of standing while being pleasant at the same time.
2. I hate retail and phone jockey work. I find it insulting and boring. (Sorry anyone who does it for a living.) It pays the bills, slightly, but honestly there is nothing about it that I find personally redeeming. I played that game long enough and life is too short to waste it any longer doing work with no point to it.
3. My brain really wanted some sort of challenge. (I'm hoping that happens soon.)

I'll update this post as the situation progresses. At least now I have somewhere to point people to when they want to know about the whole sorted affair.
Parents: Feel free to use this post as as way to scare your kids if you need to.

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Addendum October 2007
I am scheduled for a total ankle replacement on January 25, 2008. My entire ankle region has collapsed and there is nothing but bone on bone down there. Pain medications don't really help much. It's going to be a long, painful wait.
This is what they will be doing to me: Ankle Replacement Surgery.