Take a look at the photo of my wrist. In the last 36 long days, whenever I doubted my decision to have it fixed, I would just look at that photo. The days off work, the recovery, the inability to do SO many things – I would remind myself that it’s temporary and I am going FORWARD.
After 4 years of living with this painful mess, I got a second opinion. ( I’d had “bilateral distal radius fractures – read about that here: When Fight Gone Bad Went Bad )
I went to see Dr Koester at Marshall Orthopaedics at Cabell Huntington Hospital. I was diagnosed with a “Malunion of the left wrist with a painful wrist and distal radioulnar joint.” Dr Koester was….smart. He said he could help me and I believed him and was ready.
This is what I look like inside my left wrist now. Bear in mind, I am left-handed. The procedure took longer than they thought because there was more to do. I’m already glad about everything they did. Here’s the short version of my procedure:
“Dorsal opening wedge osteotomy of the left distal radius through a volar approach. This was grafted with the femoral head, structural allograft and stabilized with a Synths dual column volar variable angle narrow locking plate. This was a 4 hole, 2.4 plate.”
Here are all the details, if you’re into that sort of thing.
I wore a soft cast for 2 1/2 weeks. Here’s what I looked like for most of that time…. This was the evening after the surgery. You might notice that I was so afraid of bumping my fingers and thumb that I wore the hospital gown home. haha (with pants)
More later.
Feeding Ger Sasser 