Limping Ahead A Bit

Here's where we stand (or sit) at the moment.  All of the hardware has been removed from my left ankle.  That ankle hurt the worst, despite other treatments.  It took two operations, since the doctor didn't want to have to haul out the hammer and chisel to pull out certain screws.  He also didn't want to remove a syndesmosis that had developed over a ligament.  The hammer and chisel were removed during the second operation that happened in late 2012.

Since then, I've had hell getting one of the incision wounds to heal.  (The first person to use the word "diabetic" in a response is going to get hit over the head with a very large and ripe banana.  My A1C is 5.1 and my fasting glucose is 84, so I'm in "diabetic remission.")  Removal operation #2 required incisions on both sides of my ankle, so the ortho doc went in through my already existing scars.  I don't know what he did wrong, but I don't like it.

The scar on the inside area (the medial area? Correct me if I'm wrong) eventually closed up with fibrous material and a nastier scar.  The scar on the outside area (lateral?) has never closed up.  The ortho doc had no idea why it wasn't healing, and I damn near scared my primary care physician to death when I showed it to him during an appointment for a different malady.

I was referred to a specialist in foot wounds in December 2012.  He has since poked, scraped, suction bagged, and medicated the outer wound site, with no joy.  The latest thing he tried involved a "procedure" of some sort which was close to an operation, but not exactly - I was heavily sedated, but not knocked out.  During the procedure, he did a curettage which scraped out all of the fibrous (fibrous == bad) material.  He later told me that it extended all the way down to the bone.  He sent samples from the procedure for infection testing, but no word on those yet.

After the Big Dig (left outer ankle version), he injected a newly approved fluid which he said contained placental and amniotic fluid material.  He told me that it was "sort of" a T-cell injection, and believe it or not, it's working!

Or at least, it was.

So, here I sit, almost 7 months after the second hardware removal, still having to have my wife irrigate, pour collagen flakes into and then bandage my left foot since the wound is in an area I can't reach.  The good news is that I've grown a lot of granular "beefy" material (doctor's words, not mine), which is a sign that the wound is healing.  The bad news is that it seems to me like it has hit a plateau.

I have another appointment with him on Monday.  Watch this space for updates.