I received an email today asking about how I was originally injured, and I realized that I never really talked about that on this blog, so here was my response to her:
So I have gone through the surgery twice now - once about 5 years ago, and one almost a year ago. With the first occurrence, I was riding a longboard (long skateboard) on a paved trail, and I hit a rock that was sitting on the path. It caused me to fly off of the board, and it all happened very quickly. It felt like I just smacked the outer side of my left ankle on the pavement really hard. It was very painful but I just figured it was a sprain because it showed all of the characteristics of a sprain. I didn't even think much about the popping when it started because I figured it was just a temporary thing and part of the recovery process. Finally, more than a month after my injury, I went to get it checked at an instacare because I could see that it wasn't getting better. They took x-rays and such, but then just referred me to ankle specialist. The ankle specialist told me that I would need the surgery, and that was that. The recovery from the first surgery didn't seem too awful really.
I re-injured my ankle 4 years later, literally just running from my car to my front door, and I just rolled it. I was shocked, and it hurt so so badly. Worse than with the first injury (probably because it tore up everything that they had tacked down in the first surgery). I guess I am kind of prone to this injury because I have very flexible (and thus unstable) joints. The second surgery was last December, and the first week of recovery was horrible. I was extremely sick because of the medications. I was on bedrest for that first week, but even after I was off bedrest I didn't want to get up for anything. Luckily, after about the first 2 weeks, I felt much much better and I was able to return home (I had been staying at my parents house so they could take care of me). It has been almost a year since that surgery and my ankle feels good and stable. I don't regret getting either of the surgeries, though the second doctor/surgeon seemed more knowledgeable to me about the whole thing and I feel like my ankle isn't going to "come undone" again. Hope this helped a little, and if you have any specific questions, just let me know. I'm just trying to raise awareness a little because I was so frustrated when I realized that there is a serious lack of information about this injury.
If you haven't read about my most recent recovery from ankle surgery, check that out here.
And I'd just like to leave you with two cell phone pictures that my sister took right after they removed my cast at the beginning of January this year. They took off the cast 2 weeks post surgery. These were taken right after the stitches were removed (which was a very painful process!) You can faintly see the 'YES!' that I wrote on my ankle before the surgery to make sure they were operating on the correct ankle. You can also see some purple pen marks around the scar. Also, my ankle and calf are really thin because they had started to atrophy. And the last thing to take note of is my blue toenails. I had gotten a pedicure a few days before the surgery so that my toes could "look cute" in my cast. Then at the hospital they said they would have to remove the polish so that they could make sure that my toenails weren't actually turning blue after the surgery. I begged them not to take off the polish, but I was doubtful that they would listen. When I woke up from the surgery, my first question to the nurse was whether or not my toenail polish was still there. And it was! The little glimmer of happiness in my life that day :)
