Amputation…the trials and tribulations!

Scott Honn
Jul 21, 2017 · 4 min read

So let me tell you a little about myself first. I’ll be 50 years old this October (2017), I’m a computer programmer for one of the largest Health Insurance Companies in the US, I’m married for the second time to my beautiful wife Stacey and she has 3 children from a previous relationship. I have 2 grown children from my previous relationship.

So I moved to Dallas Texas in 2014 after getting divorced and needing to get out of the North East due to the winters which I hated. I had been talking to Stacey on the phone pretty much daily and was living in my RV (Recreational Vehicle for those that don’t know) and it was an easy move. Stacey and I got married in August of 2015.

I suffered a pretty bad motorcycle accident in September, a month after we got married. A lady ran a stop sign and pulled out in front of me. I have no recollection of the accident but I’ve talked to a couple of the EMS personnel and they said that there were no skid marks so I didn’t have time to respond it seems. So as a result here’s a list of the injuries I sustained in that accident:

  1. Compound fracture of my lower left leg
  2. Broken Pelvis
  3. Broken Right Hip (the cup part of the joint)
  4. Broken Right Arm
  5. Crushed Right Index Finger Kuckle
  6. Flesh Wound of upper Left Thigh
  7. Concussion

So yes, it was a bad accident and I’m lucky to be alive. In addition, and this is where it gets really bad, not that it wasn’t bad enough. The lower left leg compound fracture eventually got infected and the infection spread into the bone. I then went to a specialist who removed that infected bone, about 4 inches of bone just above the Ankle joint. He applied a Taylor Spacial Frame similar to the one pictured here. What this allowed for was to move the bone that was left below the knee down into the 4 inch gap created by the bone removal and to regrow the bone above it as it was moved down over the course of 18 months or so.

I had several complications, the first being that I’m a Type I diabetic for 30+ years, second the pins that were holding that frame on my leg (Pins that went from the edge of the frame into the bones to either hold it in place by putting them in healthy bone that wasn’t being moved or putting them into the bone being moved in order to move it. I may do a detailed explanation a little later but for now know that it was a painful and multi surgery process in fixing pins that had broken or moving pins as the bone had moved. After it had been moved as much as the surgeon thought it could my left leg was 1.5 inches shorter than the right. He then put a metal rod in the Tibia bone and held it in place with two screws on the inside of my ankle. Eventually one of the screws came out of the bone and popped through the skin. I was scheduled for a bone graph to graph the Tibia to the Fibula to make the bone stronger just above the ankle at which time he fixed that screw. Well that brings us to where I am now…

After fixing that screw that had popped out and after some recovery time he asked me to begin bearing weight on the ankle which I did with the help of a Cane. Since then one of the screws in my ankle is broken and the other is bent. I’ve been in pain almost non-stop since the accident and on Opiods the entire time. Because of the discussion with the surgeon related to what can be expected in terms of recovery of the limb I’ve decided to have the ankle and foot amputated. I’ve given it all I can to try to recover the limb but the pain is more than I can bear and what’s expected in terms of recovery won’t be as good as I can get with a prosthetic, in my opinion.

I’ve met with the Prosthesis company here in Dallas called Scott Sabolich Prosthetics and Research and feel very good about my decision. My amputation is scheduled for August 2nd, 2017. Today is July 27th, 2017 so I’ll do another update after the amputation. I’m in the process of reading a book written by two of the founders of the Prosthetics company, John and Scott Sabolich called “You’re Not Alone” which has a lot of really good information in preparation for the amputation and living with it after.

This blog is meant to take you through this amputation and the eventual prosthetic fitting and living with the decision. I’m sure there will be plenty of obstacles that I will successfully overcome and plenty of failures that we can all learn from, and I mean us all…not just amputees. Anyway, enough for today, I’ll post again after the surgery on August 2nd. Wish me luck, good vibes and prayers are always welcomed! Talk again soon…

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