Poor Curtis!

Curtis finally had surgery on his ankle last week!!  He injured it his senior year of football and it's been killing him ever since!  During the season he would just shoot it up with this numbing stuff so he would be able to play.  He never had the time to be off his feet for four weeks...and not run for three months...so he just waited and waited.  His ankle used to hurt a lot after working out or running...but now it was to the point where it would just throb out of nowhere.  The doctor took an MRI and said he had a bone spur and some cartilage damage...but when he actually got in there he said it was worse case scenario.  Inside his ankle the cartilage was completely shredded.  A huge 2x2 cm chunk completely fell off his tibia.  No wonder he was in so much pain...he had no cartilage padding his ankle joint.  The doctor cleaned in all up, shaved down his bone spur, and drilled holes up into his tibia.  I guess if you let the bone bleed out a little, the blood can nourish the ankle joint and hopefully cushion it.  He said that in 10-15 years there is a 99% chance Curtis will have major arthritis problems and they will probably have to fuse his ankle joint.  Hopefully he's in that 1% where things turn out great and normal.  I'm so glad he won't be in pain now...at least for the next 10 years!  

Curtis right after surgery...
Curtis had to keep this splint on for a week...and then stay off his foot for four weeks...
Shredded cartilage...
Drilling holes into his tibia...
That huge 2x2 cm chunk of cartilage that just fell off the bone...

All cleaned up...

This is what Curtis wheels around in so he stays off his foot.  SO much better than crutches!  I think the best thing about the surgery is that he gets to have a handicap pass in his car  :)  jk