Jay's Busted Femur
It's a short story but here goes. By the beginning of August 2006 we had been living in Seattle for only a month or so and while Lisa was studying for her pharmacy boards I was doing a lot of mountain biking. One Friday after work I went for a quick ride at Big Finn Hill Park with my friend Kyle and had a little accident. I say little because it really felt little at the time, well, sort of, I'll explain. I got hung up on a log that was laying across the trail and ended up falling to the left. When I landed my nose hit a stub of a branch on the log and was smashed to the left, breaking horribly of course. When I got the bleeding from my nose under control I realized that I couldn't move my left leg, not even a little. Kyle tried to help me up but I couldn't do it, now the pain started. He got the paramedics to show up and carry me out of the woods and take me to the hospital. After about 5 hours, a dozen X-rays, two doctors, and much discussion I was being prepped for surgery to place a titanium plate a lag bolt and a few small screws in my thigh. They started at midnight and were finished at about 3:30am, all reports were that the surgery went well. I was in the hospital for another couple more days with Lisa sleeping on the couch in my room. When I got home Lisa basically had to do everything for me, I could hardly move and couldn't do a thing for myself. I was able to get around with crutches after about a week and went back to work after about two more. It's now been a little more than six weeks and my doctor says I am healing very well. We've taken a few pictures through the weeks. It took another couple months before I could walk without a cane and another six months before I could ride again even a little. UPDATE: After almost 3 years I was still in a fair amount of pain so back to the surgeon I went, the only thing he could do to help was to remove the hardware they installed when I broke it, sometimes it causes problem. At the beginning of November 2009 it all came out and I'm starting my recovery over again!
I had to straighten it in the woods so I could breathe, the doctor said I got it pretty straight too, you can hardly tell it was broken so badly
It's tough to scan xrays but you get the idea, all that metal will remain in my leg forever, pretty cool looking huh?
I was very worried about how my tattoo was going to look when the stitches came out
My surgeon did such an amazing job closing it up you can't see it unless you know it's there
As a joke Lisa got me this Lego ambulance to remember my trip to the hospital
After three years of pain the metal was removed, it's crazy that all that was in my leg since my crash, well, all of it but the quarter :)