Bag of Bones

June 7, 2009: after what I can only call as a "freak" biking accident, and after getting an x-ray done and 3 hours of waiting in the ER, one of the ER doctors finally checked on me and told me, as gently as she could but without mincing words, that "It's really bad. It's a bag of bones."

I'm not gonna go TMI on this by detailing exactly what "bag of bones" meant.

If you can take it, here's Exhibit A: the pre-surgery x-ray of my injury. I'm not a doctor so the first time I saw this, I was like, "Oh-kaaayyyy...yeah, that looks bad..." only because it does look nasty and very unlike pictures of normal uninjured bones in science books.

June 10, 2009: after 6 hours in the OR, I now have a "cyborg" leg.

In case you're wondering (I know you are): No, the metal rods in my leg do not set off security scanners. Bummer.

Sept. 13, 2010: It's been 15 months since the accident and the surgery. I've been walking without crutches since early June 2010.

Today I saw my orthopedic surgeon for the last time (yay!). The next time I'll see him again is when I decide to have the cyborg stuff removed. So it's remarkable to me that in our "last" conversation, I learned a couple of things that sound really awesome to me:

* I've long known that my injury could've been much worse; I could've torn a ligament or damaged a nerve. But I learned today that had the fracture been more complicated (what -- a mess of bones isn't?!), I could've needed more than 1 surgery. He told me about a guy who was in a motorcycle accident, his legs were crushed and he ended up needing 10 surgeries. TEN effin' surgeries. Good grief.

* Doc told me about a friend of his who also had leg fractures and needed to have rods put in, but later on had to have the rods removed and reattached because of infection. Infection like that, he said, was likely to occur in the OR, which is why they spend a lot of time cleaning and disinfecting the wound.

* When he was reviewing the x-rays, comparing the post-surgery and the latest plates side-by-side, he pointed out the part that he was monitoring in particular.

This x-ray on the right is the latest one. Warning: possibly TMI.

See that clump of bone on the lower middle part? Just to the right of the 3 short screws. That, my friend, is my ankle bone. Uninjured ankle bones do not look like that.

It was shattered, in pieces. I had always assumed that some sort of surgical wire mesh was used to gather and hold the pieces in place so that they'd fuse back together. But today, I learned that there was no mesh. What kept them together was that one long screw that's acting sorta like a skewer. And see those other long screws on the bottom? Yeah, that's my A-team right there, supporting the big kahuna on top. Amazing.

Now why does my repaired ankle bone look like that? Doc explained that, since the pieces were all over the place, they just had to do the best they can to reshape the ankle bone, thus the odd non-sharp contour of my left ankle, which you can actually see even without an x-ray.

On our way home, I thought about these things and I felt so overwhelmed by all that God had brought me through, all the risks He protected me from. There is no doubt about it: this had God's hands all over it. He was right beside me, every step of the way, watching over me and keeping me safe, just as He promised He would do always despite my stupidities and carelessness. At the same time, He taught me me a thing or two (or twenty) that affirms why the "how did this happen" isn't that important anymore, but the "why it happened to me" is.

And I will forever be grateful it did.