Queenee's ankle

Queenee saw the ankle specialist, Dr. Chiodo, this morning. More x-rays were taken before he saw her, and he made a very strong point of telling her to stop thinking "fix" and start thinking "salvage". There is no fixing going to happen. She had a bad break to begin with, she'll never walk normally again and she just has to accept that. She'll have to dial things back, rest a little more, and stop pushing herself to be all things to all people.

There are some shadows in her x-rays that do not bode well. If she is lucky, the bone will turn out to be osteopenic, bone that just isn't as dense or strong as it should be as a result of the break, though osteopenia itself doesn't show up on regular x-rays.

If she is not lucky, she may have an infection in the bone. This could be very bad news, depending on how much the infection has progressed. A small infection might be able to be treated with a long course of IV antibiotics and perhaps some surgery. An advanced infection could result in her losing the lower leg. Yes, we're talking amputation. Obviously we all hope that is not the case. The series of tests that are underway will tell the tale. Bloodwork was done at the Faulkner, then we went to Brigham and Women's for a CATscan. Finally, she'll be scheduled for a tagged WBC scan &mdash some radioactive material will be attached to a sample of white blood cells, then re-injected into a vein, then she will be scanned. There is only one person at B&W that does the WBC scans, so we'll wait for him to call and schedule our Queenee. Once all the tests are complete, some decisions can be made.

In the best case, she'll probably have the ankle joint fused. She'll lose the flexibility in the ankle, but she's down to 20 degrees now and has significant arthritis in there, so that will only continue to decrease. At least she'll be pain-free. She'll also have a minimum of nine months recovery, and Dr. Chiodo said probably more realistically it will be a full year. That is sure to try her patience. In the worst case… well, we'll burn that bridge if and when we have to cross it. Meanwhile she maintains her usual good humor and will face down whatever needs doing when she knows for sure what that will be.