UKC

Hi I shattered my talus and fractured my heal. I thought they would patch me up but I did far too much in between operations like working ect. Walking too much . Anyways it's lead to a lower leg amputee now. I'm not writing to dash your hopes I'm writing to say " Do everything to heal. Use crutches longer . Don't do anything to jeperdise the healing process. I had a lot of complications due to the operations going wrong . Screws snapping. Infections arthritis and cartlidge problems. The best outcome was to fuse my ankle but even that went wrong .I'm in wales. I don't know if it was Dr gadgil the problem or dirty hospitals but alot went wrong.everybody is different though. I had a shattered talus . In three pieces with floating bits of bone  getting into nooks and crannies causing arthritis. Don't think to run about too soon and stay off it. I hope yours get better without complications, it's a serious injury and hard to fix without long term problems I hope your one of the lucky ones 

Shit man, that's awful. I snapped my talus clean through 15 years ago. 

During the operation they forgot to sew the hole up where they inserted a large screw in the rear of my foot, before wrapping my leg up in a cast.

A week later, in a different hospital, they struggled to remove the cast due to congealed blood in the cast. I could see the bone, it was a mess.

I thought I had been unlucky...

Hi Ian, Sorry to read about your injuries.   I smashed my calcaneus in to unfixable pieces last June, I've been taking my recovery really slowly  and only stopped using either my crutches or cast last week (although they didn't stop me getting up in the mountains - albeit very, very slowly once the 6 weeks of total non-weightbearing were over). My prognosis is still looking rubbish with either fusion or amputation within 5 years. I'm not sure about either - I like long, long mountain days with some solo climbing at the end of a long walk in, and whilst I've heard of people managing to stay climbing after a fusion, I've not heard of anyone continuing long walks in the mountains.  The idea of a fusion is really off-putting.  There seem to conversely be more options for staying active following an amputation. I'd be interested in your thoughts. It sounds like you've had a really awful time. When was your amputation?