Stupid brain

Scott van Looy

Feb 10, 2024 • 5 min read

So those of you who know me will know I broke my ankle in 3 places in early December. It was a complicated fracture involving 4 operations so far to set and deal with the breaks as well as deal with a torn ligament.

Interior of my ambulance — Little did I know at this point about the adventure that awaited me…My M

My leg was in a pretty bad way. I slipped on ice with a rucksack full of shopping on my back and things made a bad crunching noise when I hit the ground.

X-Ray image of my lower leg/ankle showing injury — Initial X-Ray - you can see the major break in my Fibula (circled in orange). Blue shows where I ruptured the ligament in my ankle. Broadly speaking, the gap between the bone on the left and the bone on the right and the rest of the ankle are supposed to be roughly the same size.

After a long stint on a trolley in A&E, I was X-rayed, they confirmed my ankle was broken with a “yep, that’s broken” and I was put in a cast and admitted to the ward.

Monday morning came and I was told that they might be able to operate and I might get out by Friday. This proved not to be the case. Firstly they decided that they needed to correct the position of the bones, the only way they could do this is with external fixators, which pierce the skin and go into the bone and support the leg almost like scaffolding.

X-ray image showing the external fixator positions — Operation 1 involved “external fixators” being screwed into my bones. This was the grossest thing ever.

This was pretty gross and painful. By Monday evening I was on a different ward and my leg was all bandaged up.

Image of my legs on the bed, the injured one showing the external fixators — Definitely not allowed to walk.

I was told that I would need a further operation and pins in my leg and that this would hopefully happen on Friday. It did not.

I managed a few half days of work from my hospital bed, which was great and I’m super thankful my team let me do that as I’d have been so incredibly bored otherwise. Terrible food, interrupted sleep because of the two clowns I was sharing a ward with and a rising panic about money kept my mental state somewhat fragile. Very glad for A, he visited most evenings, we played a lot of Mario Party and he brought me snacks.

Image of the external fixators poking through my bandages — It’s not blood, it’s iodine solution from the operation. It was so orange under the bandages it looked like I had “Trump leg”

After having the external fixators added, all I could do was wait for more information. I really had no idea what was happening at this point.

They left my bandages unchanged for 4 days and then when they changed the bandage on the Thursday, it was a mess of gross body fluids that had congealed. They tore the skin on the left hand side of the ankle changing the bandages. This was painful as hell and meant they skipped the surgery on the Friday.

Monday rolled around and surgery day came. This operation was longer and it took me a while to get my head straight once I came out from under the anaesthetic. I was told everything went well and taken back to the ward.

X-ray image taken after operation 2 showing the pins — After operation 2. Many pins. Note the large gap still present between the bones on the right...

A day later I was informed that in fact it did not go as well as they’d wished. Because of the injury on the left side of the foot they had not been able to repair the ligament that was torn and that I’d have to wait in hospital for another week for another operation. Was not impressed.

X-ray image taken after operation 3 showing repairs — After operation 3 to repair the ligament. Gap between bones fixed.

After 3 weeks almost to the day in hospital, I got out, just in time for Christmas. In a wheelchair. With a huge plastic thing around my leg. My cyberleg.

Picture of my leg in the plastic contraption — The Cyberleg

So my Christmas was super boring. My New Year’s Eve I barely made it to midnight (although I still managed the champagne, I’m not a heathen) and most of all the days I’ve had off I’ve been working to try and make up for the 3 week hole in my finances. Freelance life is great, until it isn’t.

And now here I am, 10 weeks later. Last week I had the big screw removed that you can see in the X-Rays above. This meant I could finally try and put some weight on my leg, which is great.

I am stood on my own two feet looking into a mirror with my walking stick beside me — I can stand unaided and walk with a little pain :D

I’ve been walking around the apartment with a stick, I have physiotherapy starting next week and yesterday (with a lot of help from the bannisters) I managed to make it up to my apartment on foot. 3 floors of stairs. I’m doing well I think.

Image of the screw that was removed from my leg — They let me keep the screw ;)

So of course last night I had a dream. It was apocalyptic, as they usually are. I was walking around unaided with a small amount of bearable pain. I lost track of the people I was with, as is usual in my apocalypse dreams.

I ended up on a ward comparing scars with a stranger. He showed me his healing foot. I looked down and my foot was totally bandaged up. I opened the bandages and my foot was in a terrible state, reminiscent of when I had the fixators in my leg. I woke up with such a feeling of loss. Stupid brain.