Milwaukee, Willie 6.04.06

[fishchaser]

Deano,

My foot was kinda crushed by a kid who fell asleep behind the wheel (at 12:30 in the afternoon) who crossed the centerline and hit me and my Harley nearly head on.  I had turned a little, exposing the side of the bike, where he hit me and my foot.

I have 9 broken or crushed bones.  Metatarsal heads 2-5 were crushed beyond repair.  My cuboid was pulvarized to dust (Dr.'s words).  My ankle had a compound/open fracture.

The first surgery was to clean up the open fracture.  My foot had immediately ballooned up to double size from the accident, so no other work was done on the day of the accident.  Second surgery was ~3 weeks later to repair the foot.  The metatarsal heads were removed and the bone chips removed were used along with some artificial bone material to try to rebuild my cuboid.  My ankle fracture had everything in place, so nothing was done to it.  Due to the removal of the metatarsal heads and metatarsal fractures, toes 2-5 were pinned.  Since my cuboid was jelly, additional pins were put in my heel and metatarsals 4/5 and an external fixator was used to keep the spacing of where the cuboid was.  (All pins have now been removed and I'm metal-free.)

Third surgery was a skin graft, as I had a bit of necrotic skin.  Fourth surgery was for an infection I had in the area of the cuboid.  Fifth surgery was to remove all the pins for the fixator.  The upcoming sixth surgery will be to shave down the cuboid that solidified up much too large.  Maybe with the swelling of my foot, he didn't know how much bone graft material to put in.  My foot has probably now shrunken to as small as it will get (still big) and it has been 9 months since the accident.  Now the bone protrudes, with the worst of it on the bottom of my foot.  Now it's like walking with a big marble taped to the bottom of my foot, right in the arch.  Walking barefoot is out of the question due to immense pain.  Walking with custom shoe inserts is quite doable.

The ortho surgeon has been in the biz for over 20 years, including doing trauma in Los Angeles.  He said that this injury is one of the worst he's ever seen.  He said if my skin would have been damaged more, he would have amputated.  This was a Dr. down in IL  (accident was in IL, I work in IL and was coming home when the accident occurred).  I also got a second opinion from a Dr at Froedert, and he too said it was the worst he's ever seen.

But, I'm walking, but with a limp and 24/7 pain.  So at least I got that going for me!  ;D

Chad