Things went well!

A little under a week ago, I had surgery to remove a heterotopic ossification from my lower right leg. What exactly is a heterotopic ossification? Good question! Those who follow this blog regularly have likely seen my post on this topic and know that it is not good. In fact, it is a complication. A rather unanticipated one to boot. For those who haven't read the last few posts, it is basically bone that is growing within soft tissue. More simple put, it is bone growing where it ought not to grow. Of course, this truly is the most simple explanation possible. A heterotopic ossification isn't really bone at all, at least not true bone, and there are a whole bunch of different causes and factors influencing whether or not it will happen (or come back for that matter). But this explanation will suffice for this blog. For those who wish to read more about it, here is the link to the Wikipedia page about it. To seem a bit more credible - I am a nursing student after all - here is the link to the information provided about it on Medscape.

But back to my heterotopic ossification and the surgery required to deal with it. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing. Given everything that I have been through, I would be lying if I said I went unfazed by the whole thing or shrugged it off as just one more surgery to add to the list. In fact, I was more than a little bit fazed - I was scared and had a swarm of butterflies flying in my stomach up until the moment they put me to sleep in the operating room. In the week between getting the news that I would need surgery and having the surgery itself, I asked a million different questions: What if we have to start the bone transport over? What if surgery or the heteroptic thing istelf causes permanent nerve damage? What if it comes back? What if surgery causes a new infection? You get the idea. Ever since the relapse, every little twinge or ache has me worried the bone infection could come back or that the bone transport could go wrong. This makes sense when you think about how much I have actually been through. There is only so much you can take while still hoping for the best before you start scrutinizing every little thing. It will take quite some time before aches and pains in my leg do not scare me and getting x-rays won't set the hairs on my arms upright in nervous anticipation.

Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to tell you that the surgery went well and that my surgeon was able to successfully remove the heterotopic ossification without damaging the nerves in my leg! Furthermore, the bone transport is able to continue as we hoped it would. Hurray!

At the end of the day, that is reason to celebrate. I might still have my external fixator, which is both painful and cumbersome, and I might not be able to walk just yet (a minimum of another six weeks to go), but I am back on track and that can only be a good thing.