The misbehaving pin

*Some of the pictures are kind of gross*

Way back when, or several months ago to be less dramatic, I was having trouble with one of my pin sites. I won't get in to the details of how my fixator works (you can read about that here), but the gist of it is that one of the pins wasn't tracking properly through the skin because the scar I got years ago when I first broke my leg was in the way. The scar caused a lot of resistance when the pin pushed against it, so instead of the pin tearing through the skin as it should of, the pin just pulled it along with it, causing the skin on one side to get all bunched up and super sore.

Here is what I will call misbehaving pin #1. Both pins were having trouble tracking, but the main culprit behind all the problems was the one on the right.

My surgeon cleaned up my pin sites a bit when I went in to have the heterotopic ossification removed on March 11th. This is what it looked like after surgery:

They healed up very nicely and could, respectively, no longer be called misbehaving pins. Unfortunately, that title was taken over by another pin, a pin I like to call misbehaving pin #2. It oozed fluid for weeks, then it got all red and manky and macerated, until finally my surgeon said it had to come out. This was done on April 13th. It turns out that it was infected - after taking it out, my surgeon pushed on the skin around it and pus came out.

Here is misbehaving pin #2:

And here is all that was left of it once it came out:

No more problems with that one!

Except now that the above mentioned pin is gone, I am having problems with the one next to it. That pin is closest to my foot. Since the pin that was above it is gone, all the fluid that came out of it had no where to go, so it's pooling around the very bottom pin. This is misbehaving pin #3. This pin drains a lot because it is at the bottom of my leg - every time I move my foot/ankle, the skin shifts around that pin. As a result, all the not so lovely fluid comes out. And because of where the pin is, it is a bit challenging to put on a dressing that actually stays in place - the tape used to secure it tends to come off when I move my foot around. But I do have to have extra non-woven sponge around the pin because otherwise the leaking stuff runs straight onto my foot and from there onto the floor or whatever I happen to be sitting one, like my bed. Gross. So now I am experimenting with different combinations of sponge and tape, all of which extend onto my foot. Fun times. Oh, and because the bottom pin is leaking more, the dressing is getting soaked faster. This ends up resting on my skin, making it moist and icky.

I don't have any pictures of misbehaving pin #3... yet. I'm sure I will in a matter of days. Then they will inevitably end up on here for your viewing pleasure.

I can't wait for the fixator to come off.