afromanbob

If you want to skip my rather lengthy story and go straight to my questions then don’t read the long paragraph.

Hi, I'm an unfortunate 18 year-old who abruptly ended the best summer of his life . On Tuesday (Aug. 9) I fell while skateboarding back to my house. I landed very awkwardly on my left foot which made it twist and produced a loud popping/cracking noise. The specific series of events that follow are unclear but I remember both quickly popping my foot back into place, since it was way to the left (rotated about 90 degrees). Then I remember either trying to walk or standing, or something; something that showed my that my foot was all floppy and I had no control over it. I knew I was injured badly and luckily was neither far from my house, nor far where I was skating from, our neighborhood cabana club. I yelled for John or Cory, the lifeguards at work at the time but they didn't hear me. Fortunately a neighbor was out. I yelled for him to tell my mom that I broke my ankle and we need to go to the hospital. Like any concerned mother, she came running down the street to see me, I calmly told her to get the car, because we need to go to the hospital. She did just that, and as her and my neighbor were trying to load me into the car (a large SUV ) I was about to faint. And actually, I even said to my mom, "I'm about to faint, and I hope I do." I was in the worst pain of my life, and I've suffered many other injuries in my life. She decided it would probably be easier to call for an ambulance. Luckily a fire station is located one block from my house so the firemen were there in about one minute. They proceeded to make me a little brace for my ankle while I waited for the ambulance. The ambulance arrived not much later and off I went to the hospital, my mom trailing closely behind in her car. In the ambulance I received 4 mg of morphine, although reluctantly (the EMTs highly advised me to take it). Actually the EMTs were a joy to talk to. They seemed to know exactly what I was going through and were very good in cheering me up. While unloading me from the ambulance one of the EMTs said he usually just sticks to Tony Hawk on the ***********, and the other replied by saying he should be careful not to get Nintendinitis. I laughed and said that’s all I wish I had. I got wheeled into the ER and was put in room eight. I waited there for about five minutes until a doctor talked to me and sent me to get X-Rays. Waiting for X-Rays, I spoke to a family whose son was also waiting for X-Rays because of a broken arm due to skateboarding. When I first asked what was wrong, however, the dad said “Gun shot,” though he was only joking, I fell for it. I took three painful X-Rays, then returned to my room in the ER. Moments later the doctor returned with my X-Rays and they certainly confirmed what I had felt. A lengthy spiral fracture up my fibula, but more importantly than that, I had separated the tibia and ankle join region. I’m not completely clear on how to explain what the injury was, but actually, I did the exact same thing Terrell Owens did to his ankle during last season’s NFL game. The doctor said I’d be needing surgery, involving specifics which she was unclear on. I went home from the ER with an appointment the next morning and orders not to eat or drink after midnight, since I may be having surgery in the morning. I returned to the doctor’s in the morning with news that they could not schedule me in for today (Aug. 10), but it didn’t matter since the leg was too swollen to be operated on anyway. The next day I returned with an empty stomach, met for the first time with the doctor who would be doing the surgery and with hardly even a glance at my foot said surgery will be today (Aug. 11). I took a deep breath and said, “OK, let’s do it.” He told me what he’d be doing. First a plate with screws would be attached to my fibula, probably remaining attached for the rest of my life unless they start to bother me. Then for the ankle which more importantly needed to be fixed I am still unclear what was done, but it was the less drastic of the two methods he said he would need to do. He did not have to put a long screw through two bones, a screw that does need to be removed after the ankle is healed. I returned back to the hospital at 11:30 that morning and eventually waited until about 3:00 until surgery. To be honest I wasn’t too worried about the surgery, but the only thing I was really nervous about was the anesthesia. I have never had a surgery or been put to sleep before and was worried about having a reaction to these drugs and, well, not waking up. Before the surgery I was asked an unexpected question by the two anesthesiologists: Which type of anesthesia do I want, regional, or general. After a nearly half-hour discussion and decision I nervously picked regional (the one the anesthesiologist said that, “If it was my brother I’d give him regional.” The thing that seemed so strange about regional anesthesia was that you are conscious, to a degree, the whole time. In retrospect I’m very glad I chose regional anesthesia because I actually enjoyed surgery. It was fun. I was in the OR they gave me some calming drugs through the IV and then a couple needles in the back, not so fun, then a mask with some heavier drugs. While fully conscious in the OR with the mask I was laughing and really enjoying myself. Next thing I know, I’m awake and talking to the nurse in the recovery room. The next 30 minutes were euphoric. However, since those 30 minutes the last 54 hours (Aug. 11 4:00 to now is 54 hours) have not been so great. Yesterday was really painful, and today, while better, has not been enjoyable.

Sorry for the long story. I will now get to the questions. To summarize: I broke my ankle skateboarding, and needed surgery. Surgery involved putting a plate on my broken fibula and repairing tendons or ligaments (to be honest I’m not entirely sure how my ankle was fixed) because my ankle and tibia were too far separated. Surgery ended at 16:00 Aug. 11.
Questions: It’s been over two days now and my foot is still really swollen. While I expect this is normal, I just want to confirm that it is and also would like to know how long I could expect it to be swollen. However, I am more concerned about how my foot it numb. The blood flow to my toes is fine and my toes themselves aren’t numb, but further up onto my foot is really numb. I want to know if this is normal and how long my foot will be numb for. The pain and swolleness I can deal with. But the numbness concerns me.

An off-topic question but directly related from the surgery has to do with urination. Something that I was unaware of with the regional anesthesia was that EVERYTHING would be numb from my waist down. This included my penis. One of the qualifications to leave the OR and go home was that I needed to pee. They gave me until almost 11:00 PM, nearly seven hours after my surgery, to pee, but I couldn’t. So, I needed to have a catheter. I told the nurse that I wouldn’t need much more time to pee, but she said that this was easy and I’d get to leave now. Well, breaking my leg hurt a great deal, but this.... this was a new type of pain. Simply put, it hurt so bad. Anyway, my question involving this is that it still hurts a little bit when I start to pee. I have to let it trickle out, then start fully peeing. Once I’m peeing, it’s 99% fine, but starting still hurts. Is this normal, and how long can I expect this to last?

Thank you for your help.