After five days of repetitively going in to the clinic, the mysterious pain in my ankle was diagnosed. I hurt my ankle rollerblading and the pain increased daily. My ankle was as swollen as a bloated mosquito after a three coarse meal. Walking was starting to be an impossible task on the 3 day after I fell. My mom said I had a “textbook” definition of osteomylitis. She was right and with ice on my ankle the long process of preparing for surgery started.

Dazed by the pain from my ankle I moaned, “How much longer do we have to wait?” My mom, dad, and I had been waiting for 3 hours until the ER nurses and Dr. Capello came with a wheelchair.

Dr. Capello questioned, “How are you doing?” It was a dumb question I was obviously not doing very well. I told her I was fine and started rolling around on my wheelchair. My amusement abruptly ended and I was lifted on to a table. They forcefully moved my ankle in to a soft, clamp like tool. I saw the MRI machine just before passing out from exhaustion and pain.

Finally the horrid drone of the MRI machine ended. They rolled me out of the MRI machine on my bed. The team of nurses then lifted me on to an operating bed. To me the beds seemed exactly the same. Then Dr. Capello rolled me into an operating room and gave me both a mask and an IV of anesthesia. I could even object about the needle I was out so fast. By the way the laughing gas wasn’t that funny.

Waking up was a terrible experience. The only thing I could see was the Red Cross symbol at the top of the ceiling. I woke up at the end of the surgery. Dr. Capello wasn’t finished yet but all I could do was see. My dad’s voice startled me, “MAAAaaaaat” for some reason it seamed as if his voice echoed and dragged the A in my name.
For some reason it took me 5 minutes to process what he said and to think of a response, “Dad is that you?”
He answered, “Yes.”
I moaned “I feel sick and light headed.” I turned my head and the doctor was done. I was also in another room.
My mom helped me prop my head up with a couple pillows. I thought the new scar on my ankle was pretty cool. My mom wasn’t too fond of it. That day friends and family came to my hospital room and gave me stuffed animals and games to keep me entertained. I ended up being in the hospital for 6 days. I only could sleep around 2 hours each night because of the pain.
Then the day came. Dr. Capello forced me to get up and get into my wheel chair. All the blood shot to my ankle, I couldn’t speak because of the sheer pain. Although it wasn’t optimal I loved the fresh air when I wheeled out side.
All of a sudden I had to have another surgery. They put in a permanent IV called a pick line into my arm. We also received meds to stick in it every 8 hours for 3 months. I had a visit to the hospital every week that summer and had a nurse come to my house and clean the pick line. I had a wheel chair for about 2 weeks, crutches for a month and a walking boot for 2 months. There are many other stories linked to this surgery, but those are for another time.