VegasJen

i appreciate everyone who's been keeping up on my healing process and all the well wishing. i figured some of you might find this interesting too so i thought i'd let you know what is going on and how it's supposed to work.
for those of you who saw the early pictures before they were removed, you know how bad the original wound was. those of you who did not, suffice to say, it was fairly gruesome. enough so, the mods felt the pics were inappropriate. i'm including this pic because i don't think most would find it particularly gruesome to look at. i hope the mods agree.
what happened was i got a foot stuck under the rear tire while the car was rolling. concequently, it dragged me about 20' with the foot stuck in place, tearing a lot of tissue and ligament from the inside of the ankle joint. it also compacted road debris into the joint.
the treatment from the doc was to clean out the joint and stablize it. that consisted of "external fixation" which i'm sure many of you have seen. part of it is visible in the picture below. that's where the docs installed pins in my shin bone and heal bone and then bolted a bracket outside the leg to keep the joint immoblized.
now as for the 2" diameter hole on the inside of my ankle, the treatment is called a "wound vac". what is done is the doctor/nurse cuts a piece of medical foam to the same dimension as the open wound and puts the foam in the wound. sometimes there is a barrier material between the tissue and the foam, sometimes not. then they seal the foam with a plastic "drape" that clings to the good tissue around the wound site. they snip a hole in the drape over top of the foam and put this thing on that looks like a shower head. it has a tube that goes to the vac. you should be able to see this stuff in the pic below. the portable version for outpatients like me is roughly the size of an old polaroid camera an has a digital control that maintains a constant vacuum on the wound. it's actually maintained at an optimum 125in/Hg by the vac as they believe that gives the best results.
anyway, the point of the vac is that it is supposed to pull the healing tissue up toward the foam and fill in voids. it also keeps drainage contained. it's apparently working since it's been just about a month and the depth of the wound has filled in close to 1/2". there is now tissue completely covering the bone damage and the exposed tendon is nearly covered up.
i'll be seeing the docs again this week for progress evaluation and hope at that point to find out if i can go into a cast of some kind so i'm no longer on crutches. but i still have a pretty significant hole remaining. i'm anxious to be able to walk again but the exposed wound is going to be the biggest obsticle.
hope this was interesting. hope you learned something. hope i told it correctly.
most importantly, i hope this is the first, last and only time any of you ever have to see a wound vac.
stay healthy and be careful, especially when working on your vettes. they don't always love us back!

Gordonm

Looking better than those original pictures.

You should be walking shortly. Good luck with it.

britvette

Good to see that it is healing up as well as can be expected , are you still getting much pain with it ? Hope you get the cast so you can get around without the crutches but the open wound and infection would be a big concern if it were me too.
Take it easy and don't rush the recovery , these things are best left to take their own sweet time - good luck

Eddie 70

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Glad to hear things are getting better with your injury, still looks pretty ugly to me. I missed the first set of pics. Get well soon.

SIXFOOTER

Well I gott to say that is a big improvement on the original pics. Glad your making some progress. The 125" of vac sounds a bit high, car only pulls about 20, but could be I recon, thats why there are no letters at the end of my name..
Anyways, glad its gettin better

VegasJen

whoops! caught me there. that should have read 125mm/Hg. :bb:

Bangkok Dean

thanks for keeping us informed on your progress, we are all hoping you get back to normal soon.

Jughead

Man, thats gotta hurt. Hope you heal fast.

Thats always been one of my fears, getting hurt while working on my cars.....

About 15 years ago I was pushing a 85 Reanult POS Alliance in my driveway and it started slidding backwards. A piece of chrome trim sticking out slashed my right knee to the bone.

Fortunately no serious damage was done.

C3 4ME

I think I'm glad I didnt' see your original pictures but I've followed your progress and wish you a speedy recovery. Both of my daughters had to have surgery on their heads at only a few months old and seeing a drain tube come out of their heads was hard to handle for me.

Poppa Bud

I saw your original pics and I cringe every time I think of the pain you went through. Don't have a very tough stomach.

I'm glad that your healing is making good progress, believe me, I'll never push my vette and try to jump in to start it.

Thanks for sharing your story, I believe the best education is learning from someone others mistakes, sorry it had to be you.

Best of luck and get well soon, vette driving season is coming up!

Bud

turtlevette

i'm a little confused. That is the inboard side of your LEFT foot.

When it happened to me and my brother it was the inboard side of the right foot.

How did you get your left foot under the tire?

Love My 72 and 77

Glad to say I did'nt get to see the original photos cuz I just tossed my sandwich back on the plate for a while!

Glad to hear you are healing up well. Post your address I will send you a chunk of 4X6 to use instead of your ankle

lucky76

I'm glad to see your recovering. I did see the original pictures before they were removed and I can still hurt thinking about it. Good Luck and a fast recovery.

406shark

Glad to see the healing process is working so well. You should be good to go by spring. How often are you having to change the dressing?

I see and change wound vac's on people almost daily at work...I'm a nurse.

Good luck, and get well soon.

Jeff

VegasJen

hell, i don't know. i jumped in, right foot made it, left foot got caught by the tire.

every other day. it's getting better. the very first change, i almost crawled out of my skin. of course at that point, there was bare sponge on open bone and absolutely EVERYTHING down there was pizzed off.
the really messed up thing about it is i've found that not only do i have a high tolerance for pain before passing out (higher than i want!) but i also have a high tolerance for pain meds. morphine, loritab, percocet. might as well be advil to me. it kind of takes the edge off but that's about all i can say for it. i guess it goes back to that high tolerance for pain thing.

406shark

It Will get better before you know it. You will be amazed at how quick it heals up. I have the same problem with any pain meds...I've been told it's due to my fast metabolism.

Good luck,
Jeff