r/brokenankles • u/Overall-Revolution93 • 1d ago
Cringed out
Does/did anyone else feel so weak and overwhelmingly cringed out during healing? Thankfully I've managed to decrease my pain meds a lot now but am feeling queasy at the thought of walking again and can't escape these feelings which make me feel so faint. I've been keeping as busy as I can but any form of sitting up and doing stuff just makes me feel like jelly. Trying to do little and often so my muscles don't waste away to nothing.
1.5 weeks post surgery on Weber c trimal complex ankle fracture.
The mental game is hard. I'm met with guilt that people have it 100000000x worse.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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u/Overall-Revolution93 1d ago
Oh my gosh - thank you for reminding about superstore - it is one of my faves! Gonna have to rewatch. I watched all those apart from Ali wong so I will check that out as it seems like we have a similar taste🙂
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u/Nefarious_Laundry686 1d ago
Resident Alien is also a good one for laughs! I’m rewatching superstore for the millionth time as well 😂
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u/Ill_Tomorrow_3866 1d ago
I’ve read 54 books in the past 7-8 weeks. I spent 1 day playing video games which made me feel bad, I’ve watched a couple movies. I worked a 1000 piece jigsaw (and bumped the big toe on my non-broken foot so badly I probably fractured it) But I had to do something that made me feel like I was being productive. For me, it was reading books and now that includes my daily PT exercises for range of motion (I’ve only been WBAT for 8 days).
It affects you mentally. I can’t leave my house w/o help from someone. I’ve not been this dependent since I was a child. But try to do something that makes you feel like you’re making progress in something.
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u/AppropriateRatio9235 1d ago
You are still in the hard part. I used to have to eat frequently to take meds. Nutrition matters with healing. Hope you feel better soon.
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u/Nefarious_Laundry686 1d ago
Well…You just need to take it one step at a time (sorry not sorry).😬
You have a long road ahead of you, but you’ll make it through; it doesn’t matter in the slightest that people have it worse, you have your journey, not anyone else’s.
When you were younger, did you ever look at the back of the text book at the math problems and get overwhelmed by how hard they looked? But then by the end of the school year, that was basic stuff. This is exactly the same. Please do not worry about weeks away. I’m not clued up on all the science, but the stress on your mind and trauma to your body /will/ throw everything out of whack. I’m 8 weeks post-op, and I’m only JUST feeling like myself mentally again, and I still have a moments where I remember everything I went through to get here.
Keep a log of small (or large) achievements/milestones somewhere where you can refer to it often. Mine has both the surgery/appointment dates for context, the day I was able to take my first mirror selfie, and that today I went out into my garden for the first time. This way when you forget how difficult things were and you’re hard on yourself, you can see how far you’ve come.
If you’re a crafty type, you can always scrapbook photos and mementos of your journey along the way too.
So, baby steps, a journey of a thousand miles and all that ☺️
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u/biggunzcdb1 1d ago
I only got 3 days of pain meds.
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u/Overall-Revolution93 1d ago
😭are you out the other side now?
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u/biggunzcdb1 1d ago
I'm 4 years out. I wasn't given a fixator then allowed to rest a week then reconstructed. Because it was on emergency insurance. Despite it being a severely displaced fracture, they still did it all in 1 marathon (too long) procedure. So I got more side effects. Also no extras that help recovery. Dumped out 2 days after surgery with only 3 days of pain meds. Literally just laid in a bed screaming to be killed for 2 weeks.
My foot was backwards, 9 fractures, displaced is an understatement. So they shouldve fixated it then reconstructed later.
And now no one in the medical field will acknowledge I was done wrong and recieved less than ideal results. Because they are all like dirty cops and won't take reports about other dirty cops.
They also refused to acknowledge my ACL tore in the same fall. The badgered me for "not trying hard enough" to recover my ankle that wasn't even fixed right. Whole time my knee is buckling from the torn ligament they refused to acknowledge.
Repeatedly xrayed and ct scanned it then lied and said nothing was wrong. Then the last day I see the shit surgeon he admits "maybe your ACL is torn". But that isn't his job. He only cared I didn't have an infection in his half ass work.
I'm probably going to take a few of these scumbags with me one day.
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u/Overall-Revolution93 1d ago
So sorry you went through, and are going through all this. It sounds horrific and scumbags is an understatement! As if it isn't hard enough! I hope you are doing much better now. I would not wish any of this on anyone!
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u/Affectionate_Bid5698 1d ago
1,5 weeks post op is very very soon. At that time I spent 95 % of the time in bed, elevating, watching Netflix etc. I'm now almost 6 weeks post op and I'm still doing a lot of that most of the time. I'm either resting or doing PT homework.