4 weeks ago, I broke my ankle while rock-climbing. Over the past month, I found it extraordinarily helpful to read blogs of those who have also experienced ankle fractures and ankle surgery. While those blogs were part-consoling, part-unsettling, I had a need to understand timelines to get a better idea of what I will be doing, how I should be feeling at what point after my surgery. To help others in the future, here is my current ankle recovery timeline. September 2, 2016 - Day of InjuryBroke my ankle while bouldering. For those who do not know, bouldering is essentially free-climbing "short" walls with no harnesses. On my last route of the night, I made it to the top, slipped and fell 10 feet, landing on my right foot, thus breaking my ankle in 3 places. I had a spiral fracture on my fibula, transverse fracture on my tibia, and a crack on the base of my fibula. After going to urgent care, I was sent home to rest before seeing my first doctor. September 6, 2016Saw my first orthopedic surgeon, who initially said that it looked like I would not need surgery but ended up referring me to a more experience surgeon for a second opinion. She was a great doctor, very easy to understand and explained everything thoroughly and I am glad she made the decision to refer me to another surgeon who specialized more in sports medicine. September 9, 2016I went to see my second orthopedic doctor who took a glance at my ankle, my x-rays and immediately determined that surgery was necessary, especially if I want to maintain my active lifestyle. I used my Google-fu to Google everything about this surgeon and was more than pleased about his lifetime of experience and education. It is extremely comforting when your doctor is confident and you have full confidence in him. September 15, 2016 - Day of SurgeryI went into the NYU Langone Outpatient Surgery Center for my ORIF ankle surgery and left with 8 screws and 1 plate installed on my right ankle. At this point, I was extremely groggy from local anesthesia and could not feel my leg due to two nerve blocks. The apple juice and graham crackers tasted especially delicious and I could not understand why - perhaps it was the 14 hours of fasting or an effect of anesthesia? September 16, 2016 - Worst Night of my LifeAbout 18 hours after my surgery, my leg started to feel tingly, which is an indication that I was beginning to regain feeling in my ankle. 2 hours after the tingling feeling began, I experienced the worst pain of my life. The nerve blocks wore off all at once and I was in excruciating pain for the next 2 hours while my prescription medications started to kick in. While going through forums to research this insane pain, I found that many women claimed that their ankle pain post-nerve block was far worse than childbirth! I could only describe it as someone cutting my leg open and lighting my foot on fire. (At least I now the cutting open part happened but apparently the burning feeling is your nerves re-communicating with your brain.) After this night, I became extremely adamant about taking my pain medication in the shortest time intervals allowed by my doctor. September 18, 2016The splint started bothering me by digging into the back of my calf. It turned out that there was not enough cotton padding between the plaster and my skin. My doctor's post-operative assistant instructed us to stuff more cotton to pad my skin against the plaster. September 20, 2016My lovely sister bought me a knee scooter, which helped immensely in my mobility around the home. I hope to use this outside once I start going into work again but will have a hard time transporting it up and down the stairs since my building does not have any elevator. It's nice to be able to brush my teeth without either sitting down or swaying precariously on one foot in front of the sink. September 22, 2016I returned to working from home today and feel very thankful that my job and team allow me to do a lot of my work remotely while I recover from my broken ankle. I now have spaces between my swollen toes again! September 30, 2016 - Post-Op Followup #1My splint and stitches were removed today! What a big day for me as the plaster digging into my skin was annoying and the pressure of the splint often kept me up at night. My doctor said I have 4 more non-weightbearing (NWB) weeks but can start flexing my foot and pointing my toes as an initial at-home exercise. My ankle feels quite stiff but I can flex it to a 90 degree angle! I was unable to do that prior to the surgery after my accident. Instead of a hard cast, I am back into my CAM boot which my doctor said was a treat in comparison to the hard cast since I can take my foot out to ice it, do my ankle exercises and best of all, WASH IT IN THE SHOWER! October 2, 2016It's been one full month since I broke my ankle now. It's been a frustrating month to say the least. Some of the easiest tasks of a normal person's day leave me out of breath and tired. I'm thankful for my sister and Andrew who came to help take care of me this past month. I will be on my own in a day and that terrifies me. Anyway, at my post-op follow up, they said I should change my bandages every 2 days. My wounds did not look so great today when we replaced the dressing so I decided not to wash my foot yet.
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Hi everyone, it's been a while! 2016 has been such a fast year and I've had many changes come about. I moved apartments (to get away from a wretched NYC roommate situation) to my own studio, traveled to Australia and had many new projects at work. I love my job so it's been an effort putting down the work laptop and picking up the personal one. Okay, let's get to the point! Over the past 8 months, I continued some of the 6 items I mentioned and stopped some of them as well.
Consulting a dermatologist and my PCP | Seeking scalp therapyAlways see your doctor first! I saw a couple of primary care physicians (PCPs) and they all struck out. Under the assumption that I was vitamin or nutrient deficient, they all suggested that I take multiple blood tests to confirm. 8 (EIGHT!) whole tubes of blood later only confirmed that I am healthy as can be, which obviously a known iron deficiency (I take supplements for this already.) No luck there. I went to a dermatologist and was put through almost a year of scalp therapy and cortisone shot treatments to my scalp to encourage hair growth. This was a weekly treatment which was both costly and time consuming. The end point of this came when I pressed my dermatologist to find the cause of my hair loss and he said he didn't know and only knew that shots would help. Well, this did not address any root causes. (Heh, see what I did there?) Back to the PCP. One of my college friends suggested seeing an endocrinologist and while I pushed my doctors for referrals, none were interested in giving them out. Instead suggesting more blood tests...and less stress. Returning to diligent 2% minoxidil usageI hated this routine of applying minoxidil to my scalp twice daily. It, just like my dermatologist, did not fix the root cause but instead tried to increase hair growth, instead of preventing hair loss. Almost one year later now, I have stopped with the minoxidil and turned to seeking the fundamental issue. Using gentle hair care products and taking vitamins and supplementsYes! I started being more aware of the products I consume and use on my body, including both hair care products and routinely taking vitamins. Gone are the days of awful drug store shampoo and in are the days of organic shampoo! PURA D'OR Anti-Hair Loss Premium Organic Argan Oil Shampoo (what a mouthful lol)
DE - STRESSING! Yes! Yes! Yes!This was the golden ticket!! After my initial hair loss from moving to NYC, I was again plagued by it upon some newfound life stress. Work, while I loved it, was getting stressful. My previous roommate made life thoroughly unpleasant at home.
So what did I do?
I have not officially announced it in a blog post yet but many of you know that I moved to Manhattan, New York in July 2015. It's been around half a year since and I'm finally ready to talk about the stress of moving cross country and experiencing hair loss yet again. After my travels in Asia, I consistently used 2% minoxidil and my hair more or less went back to normal, had normal growth but not the thickness I had prior to traveling through Southeast Asia. I was OKAY with that. Eventually I stopped thinking and worrying about it and stopped using minoxidil. But then an amazing opportunity arose for me to move to New York City - THE New York. THE Big Apple, with a cool new job that has proved to challenge me in many ways and a chance to experience NYC life in my twenties. How could I refuse? I was becoming too comfortable in California and felt I had plateaued quickly at my previous job with no real indication of further possible career growth. So you know what, I decided to take the leap and do it. I packed my life into 2 checked bags, 1 carry on, and 1 backpack, I booked a one way flight and arrived in the heat of summer 2015. Finding an apartment, getting acclimated to my new career, and settling into the hustle of Manhattan life opened a world of stress for me that I never stepped foot into before. I began losing hair and tremendous amounts of it. I became self conscious of this hair loss and stressed about being stressed. This is how much hair i loss after just casually running my fingers through my hair for a few minutes. Bear in mind that I have shoulder length hair. I eventually loss so much hair along the crown of my head that it was becoming painfully obvious. I felt like an old man trying to hide his imminent baldness with a useless comb over. There are far worse angles but I can only bring myself to share one. I'm starting to see the humor in all of this. Stressed out, Kim?! Let's tell the world by showing them your scalp!! Hah. BUT, that was 4 months ago. Here is a photo from today. It's still obviously a work in progress but look at all of those baby hairs! Progress in the right direction, yes please. This is the result of several practices, including the following:
I may do individual posts on each of these methods but it shall depend on time constraints and inspiration :) |
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