Chronic Ankle Sprain Surgical Repair

Well, there went my New Year's Resolution. I bet you didn't make it nearly this far with yours, did you! My resolution for 2016 was to make it through the year without any major surgeries, but alas it appears that I will not make it. On Monday, May 9, I will be having a "modified brostrum" surgery to reinforce the anterior talofibular ligament on the left ankle.

The good news here, because this is actually good news, is that the diagnosis is a lot less severe than we thought. Officially, a chronic sprain requiring surgical intervention. Rather surprisingly, the MRI showed no major tears in the ligament, which is really great. So, rather than having to do a major repair, we are reinforcing the anterior talofibular ligament using local tissue, going in through the same incision we used during the December 2014 All-American Surgery. He'll also clean out any scar tissue that is certainly not helping with the inflammation that has been building up in there.

I will be in a cast for about two weeks, in a walking boot for 2-4 weeks, and will get to head into physical therapy at 8 weeks post-op. The trick, of course, is that we aren't really sure right now on how quickly I'll be able to return to work. Hopefully no more than two weeks out, but my job in the summer requires a lot of mobility so I will just have to be careful with that.

The one downside, but honestly the thing that was no different before this whole chronic sprain, was that my ankle function will never be 100%. With this procedure, we're hoping to get it up to 75-90% functionality. He did say the two things we'll need to watch out for will be any future injuries (so we'll invest in a bubble, maybe?) and arthritis, but that is a bridge that we will cross when we get to it. As my mom said, time to get on taking those omega-3 supplements. I wonder if they make a chewable version...

There are, of course, a couple of upsides. One, we now live in a house instead of on the top floor of a three-story apartment. Huzzah for not having to climb three flights of stairs! Two, I get to pull my old peg-leg buddy the iWalk 2.0 back out of the basement and make small children think I am missing a limb! Three, I am an old hat at outpatient surgeries at this point, so I am really not too stressed at this point. not to say that I won't be stressed right before, but it won't be three weeks of stress, just a few days.

I'll try to post a couple of times about my process for getting ready for surgeries, which hopefully some of you find helpful! Plus, some post-surgical downtime on the couch should give me a chance to catch up on the rest of my Disney trip reviews!