Injury Rehab (femur)

Anyone have any good online resources with information regarding Femur Rehab?

Got the Ti Rod on May 5th, and my followup x-rays this Thurs, May 27th.

More on the accident will be coming when I have more time.. Nursing and bringing this injured website back has been my main focus for the past 2 weeks.

My understanding is the Ti rod/nails are designed to be left in. After 2 years it would be evaluated on a case by case basis. If it's bothering you are causing enough discomfort, the option would be given to have it removed. It's not a matter of money or bragging rights but is it necessary? Removing the rod is major surgery and involves a second lengthy rehab so if it's not causing any problems it's usually left in.

Pins and plate's are a different matter because they can be removed with much less trama soft tissues. Removing a rod that's imbedded the full length of a femur is major.

As far as my status, the leg continues to get weaker and weaker but the pain is getting less and less. I go in for my 6 week x-ray Tuesday and will hopefully get the go ahead to start weight bearing and beginning to start to rehab the muscles. I have begun to stretch and do passive flexion and am almost to full straight and about 90 degrees of flexion.

It's more frustrating than anything. I hate depending on everyone else to get around. I know they keep telling me it's not a problem but I would much rather be helping others and not having them helping me all the time.

I keep getting up at night and having to remind myself to reach over there and get the crutches. Now that most of the pain is gone I swing my feet off the bed and start to stand up and a few times almost gone down because I forget I can't stand on my right leg. :

It will be so nice to get to put some weight on this leg...

Thanks LM.

I'm not sure about my health plan but I'll mention one thing for me and any other people that might help.

Something we talk about in teaching skiing, Desire plays a very high part of learning. I suspect that in rehab the same thing applies.

My desire is probably higher than most average people. I also have a brother inlaw that is a PT (sports speciality) as well as many good friends that are PT's as well. My wife and several of my friends are OT's so I don't think my wife will let me sit around. She doesn't want to have to take care of me: either so I'll be working hard on my own. If my health care does offer PT, I'll save those sessions for evaluation and access to specific equipment.

Alright! Doc says 50% weight or 70-80Lbs on my right leg

Time for exercises! besides walking any body got experience with a broken femur and what makes exercise more interesting?

no equipment yet (per doc's recommendation) but I got my thera-band and pillows for exercise on mats. The balance ball is replacing my rolling chair in front of the computer.

Look out world, here I come!

A month ago I was told to start 50% weight bearing. So I started to experiment with the bathroom scale and found I could support about 40 lbs. (far short of 50%) so I started hobbling around trying to get more weight on the leg.

Yesterday I got x-rayed again and now my Ortho says 100% weight bearing, No Impact or very low impact! And I can get a bicycle stand to start doing more exercise.

Continuing with the lifting leg against gravity (no weights)

And a PT friend looked at my flexion/extension of the knee. Think I got about 70-75% of my range of motion back. She commented that sometimes it takes a full year to get to 100% and I'm doing pretty good.

It's nice to be able to drive.

Long explaination of what happened.

No problem.

I was taking my Level III exam at Mammoth in Early May. The snow couldn't have been much better for that late in the season. The snow had softened up pretty nicely but was not spring sticky slush (thank goodness). It was our third day of skiing hard and we had just finished lunch and were taking our warm up run before returning to teaching. As we sped towards the bottom making medium and short radius turns (probably doing about 25-30 mph maybe more at times) I just caught an edge and went down.

I find this is expected from time to time and usually I can recover or I just pop out of my skis and just have to dust off and put my skis back on. This time both skis released (that in itself is ok) but I just landed funny. I suspect my left leg got under me and my right leg came down on top of my left boot and snaped my femur.

I started to do my normal checks to see if everything was ok and looked at my leg and realized it was not "right". Just then my examiner skied up and I told her, "I'm not moving, I just broke my femur. You better call for a Patrol"

The patrol came in a few minutes called for the ambulance and proceeded to traction my leg, get me onto a sled. By this time the rest of my group had come around on the run and were watching the whole process. Suprisingly to me, I was in very little pain. I didn't need any pain killers or O2 and was pretty awake during the whole process. I joked with the patrollers a bit trying to keep my self from getting all depressed. so the sled guy joked back that he was going to ski me down "switch"

When we got into the ambulance I asked for a little Oxygen because I was getting a little light headed. Probably from being "head down", at High Alt, and losing some blood (bleeding internally into the leg)

They called ahead to the Hospital and told them we were coming in and as usual, they report my status, vitals, pain, etc. I found out from the ER nurses later that they radio'ed in Male, early 40's broken femur, no pain killers, ??? Oxy, and pain around "3" (which is what I think I told them during interviews) All the nurses were joking "pain "3"? that guy doesn't have a broken femur, He's just a wimp!"

When I arrived they looked and were almost in shock! After a few more interviews and exams, paperwork, etc they gave me a quick acting IV pain killer so they could get my boots off and wheeled me into x-ray.

I talked to the Ortho and we made the decision to do the TI rod through the knee and they checked how much blood I was losing and scheduled my surgery.

A few friends from my home resort got my Van and stuff down from Mammoth and made arrangements to get me home as soon as they released me from the hospital.

I was taken to Pre-OP around 7:30 PM and remember waking up around 11:30 PM in the recovery room. From there it was the usual waken up every hour for feeling check in the leg/foot, vitals, bathroom, pain check, etc.

By 9:00 AM the next day I had enough of the hospital and was trying to figure out when I could leave and come home. the Ortho came though to check on me and talk about the options. My friend came by ready to take me home and the nurse accelerated my antibiotic treatments so that I could leave. We arranged to get someone to pick up pain and antibiotic meds from the pharmacy.

The PT came in, and at my begging she got the nurse to remove the Oxy feed (it was very uncomfortable), she handed me my crutches and attached a belt around my waist so she could catch me if I fell. I swung my legs off the bed, stood up and started to get a feel for the crutches. She was kind of shocked that I was willing to bend my leg so much and was happy to see I didn't need much help moving around. We did the step climb to make sure I knew how to climb stairs on crutches and checked to make sure I was doing transfers to bed and chair ok. They finished up my IV meds and released me.

The rest has been slow and frustrating recovery.

I'm up to 100 % weight bearing! Friends keep telling me "hey, you're walking pretty good!" I just smile and remark, "Nah, Getting there but it's still a hobble!"

I got the ok to start cycling on a training stand so I got to "cycle with Lance" during the tour. The trainer is set up in front of the TV so I would get up each morning and cycle for about 20 minutes while I watched the tour.

I can almost climb stairs but after I sit for a while it's painful to start walking for a while. Swelling is still a problem but I'm slowly getting better.

My range of motion is probably around 85-90% when my knee is at it's best.

Most of the time I'm moving around with no assistance. If I have a long way to go or the ground is un-even, I use a cane. The crutches are hung in the closet. YAY

Going to have to put my boots on just to do it!

DC

Break Through!

After many months of working at it, (still not in formal Therapy but I suspect next month) I've reached a milestone!

I've been on a stationary bike (bike and bike stand), stretching, lifting light weights, walking, climbing stairs, etc.. I've been without a crutches for about 3 months, and without the cane for about a month.

This week for the first time, I've been able to stand and balance on my right leg enough to put on socks, shoes or pants without leaning on something.

DC

T-Square,

This is where I wish we had modules instead of one long exam. PSIA West requires the whole exam in a 3 day format. I Might have passed the teaching portion except for the fact my demos's were not "spot on" I really didn't expect to pass but was going to give it everything I had. I knew where my flaws are and on a good day I could work them out. A great 3 days might have put me over the top. biggest thing is progressivly getting that high edge angle earlier in the turn. (it's really more than that but that's a simple way to explain it) I know what that kind of skiing feels like, it's just not naturally in my skiing yet. That one flaw trickles up into all of my skiing and helped me score mostly 3's in the skiing portion. Unfortunatly they didn't break down the tasks so I don't know how the tasks scores were but I am pretty sure some of my skiing tasks scored better. (side slipping, pivot slips, retraction turns etc)

The written was a pass, If I had one more teaching segment I might have been able to push the teaching high enough to get a pass. But that's the way PSIA W runs their certs so I'll have to go through the whole process again. Of course I'll train for the whole thing and hopefully this year I'll make the grade.

Alright!

I just got back from the Orthopedic doctor!. I now have the go ahead to exercise/workout with no restrictions! The bone is not totally healed but it's far enough along that he is telling me to go back to normal activity. The only limiting factor now is strength and pain. He says listen to my body and respect the pain. Otherwise it's time to get in shape!

The bike is moving back to the basement so I can take it out riding!

He doesn't see any restrictions for me to ski this season. There will be one last evaluation in early December to verify. When we talked he asked what my goals were and I told him I wanted the ok to teach and he said unless something strange happens between now and December, I should be good to go.