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Yesterday, I had an appointment at the local VA clinic and as I mentioned elsewhere in this blog I have some screws loose and this time they found three more that had come loose. In this case, they had been used to repair a severely broken ankle. At the time of the injury, my left foot was pointed backwards and both the tibia and fibula were sticking out through the skin. They used a small L-shaped metal bracket and five screws to hold the ankle together until the bones healed.

It’s a bit of a longer story how my body came to reject the type of screws used in orthopedic surgery. During training in the Army, I fell off of an obstacle on an obstacle course and woke up in the base hospital. About all I remember is it was the third time through on the course and the logs on the obstacle I fell off of were polished by all of the men who’d used it before me. I woke up to find doctors poking needles in my feet and asking if I could feel. I couldn’t. I was scared. It wasn’t long before feeling returned and I learned the diagnosis was a “badly bruised spine.” It was over 40 years later that I began to have problems with my back. I learned if you bruise your spine as badly as I had done it can lead to the stenosis. Stenosis is narrowing of the openings in the spine where the nerves come out. It can lead to pain, lack of feeling, and other problems. The VA was very good to me and they tried to repair my spine in four operations lasting a little over 46 hours in total. From the point of view of the surgeons, everything went well, but my body started to reject the screws used in the spinal fusions. I understand once that process starts if you have any other hardware in your body it will also be rejected and that is what has happened to my ankle. The screws will have to be removed because they will eventually poke through the skin and could lead to infection. I have an appointment later this month to see how and when they want to do that.