Tibial Plateau Fractures, the gift that keeps on giving....

Wednesday Morning, the first sign

Going into my 3rd week post op, I found myself still in incredible pain.  It was that stabbing pain that takes your breath away.  That Tuesday (5/28/19), I woke up in the middle of the night in tears it hurt so bad.  I was literally living on Oxycodone, Tramadol, Flexeril and Lyrica.  In the hospital, they had staggered my drugs to make it more tolerable.  So, when I found myself in some pretty bad pain, I started that too.  The following morning, I woke up to almost an abscess looking lump on my incision (but hot the pussy cyst thing you see on Dr. Pimplepopper).  I sent the pic to my doc's PA via My Chart.  She called me back and we went through what was going on, and what to do if something happened, etc.  I thought I had been overdoing my bending and straightening exercises.  So, I spent Wednesday on the couch with ice and compression wraps.  

Thursday Morning, before I left for Hospital

After it drained at the Gas Station

Thursday morning, I woke up to my entire incision looking angry, lumpy and not right.  I sent her pics through My Chart and my phone rang immediately. Before I knew it, I was headed up to SLC.  They worked me into the schedule, took some labs and scheduled me for I & D (debraidment surgery) for the next day (Friday).  I figured it was as good a time as any to head up to Park City to see my friends' new restaurant for dinner.  While filling for gas, I felt a warm fluid rolling down my leg.  My incision had broken open.  I kinda freaked out a bit because my doc's PA had told me if that happened I needed to let them know immediately which I did.  My labs had come back clean (without infection), so they had me wrap with gauze and compression and get to OR at 6:30 AM on Friday.  When I checked in, I was told it was a pretty straight forward procedure to flush out my wound and it would take 45 minutes under general anesthesia.  I was in there for over 2 1/2 hours.  They found infection in my tissue and on my hardware.  They took extensive cultures and had me on a hemovac drain for fluid.  While in Recovery, a large posse of people came in and headed straight for me.  I did not recognize them as being part of the trauma orthopedic team or anyone I even recognized.  They were the Infectious Disease Team- and they travel in a pack.  Because of the infection, they were now involved in my care. At that very moment, visions of the movie "Outbreak" raced through my mind with Dustin Hoffman in the yellow suit and the monkeys... the scary monkeys.  

My recovery nurse Brian, laughed when I made the analogy.  I spent 6 hours in recovery that day because they were working on finding a room for me in Ortho Trauma and I was first in line that day!  They informed me that I would be staying a few days for treatment and waiting on the cultures to come back with whatever bug decided to invade my hardware and tissue.  If there is a hospital that deserves a Forbes 5 Star Rating, it would be the University of Utah.  

After Surgery, when I got to my room