Being so many of you are wondering when I'm going to be off the crutches and back to normal, I figured I'd provide an inside look at what's been holding back my quick progress since my bike wreck on 5/30/05.
These were taken a while ago but all the hardware's the same. There's a total of 15 titanium screws and 3 plates holding the shattered Tibial Plateau (lower base of knee joint) & Tibial compound fractures together. 2 of those screws are small tack screws placed in the Patella (kneecap) to fasten the Patella Tendon properly.
Aside from the fractures my knee is recovering from it's dislocation which caused a detached Patella Tendon and detached PCL. Therapy's painful as ususal to stretch it but it's ROM (range of motion) is up to 80 degrees of flexion as of today when I completed therapy, so therapy's moving slowly but nicely.
I just got back from the Ortho Dr. for a 6 week followup and he said I can move up in partial weight bearing from 20 pounds (previously) to 50 pounds of pressure, which means I'll be stuck on these crutches till I see him for an earlier followup 3 weeks from now and hopefully I'll be able to put either almost full or full pressure back on the leg. His concern is the healing of the shattered portion of the Tibial Plateau, the bone grafts are still growing so it's very important that full weight is not put on that area until it's strong enough or it will collapse.
Thanks again for all your support and kind thoughts guys!
(keep in mind I had to put these up on the window to expose them so the lighting isn't even)
Frontal view, long thin metal running along either side of the leg is the knee immobilizer brace.
Left side view
