I am going to try not to be bitter as I tell this story, but the truth is that that dang motorcycle wreck ruined so many things for us. I use to tolerate, and even like motorcycles, but that is over now. I am soooo over the motorcycle.
July 10 2013, we were on a family camping trip. It was fun, except that I was pregnant and anxious and sick. We had enjoyed swimming, four wheeling, hiking, camp fires, and all sorts of fun things..,but it all changed when my hisband Craig took an evening ride on his brother's new dirt bike. He didn't even tell me he was going, and he didn't tell anyone where he was headed. He says that he wasn't going very fast, maybe 25 or 30 miles per hour, but when the bike hit a rut his hand jerked back the throttle and the bike spun out from under him. He doesn't remember exactly how he got injured. He says that he remembers the tire spinning out from behind him, and then sliding down the road on his back side. He was able to stand up...kind of...and hobble over to the motorcycle. He says that he was able to pick up the bike and try to start it, but his ankle was hurt badly, and the bike would not start. He knew how foolish it had been to ride alone, and he knew that no one knew where he was. It was getting dark, and he knew that he had to get back to camp, so he bagan to limp began lomp his way down the road.
By some amazing power of inspiration, our brother in law chose to go looking for Craig, and he took all the right turns until he found him. Together they were able to get the bikes back to camp, where I was so sad to see him hurt. He had bad road rash on his leg and arms, and his ankle was swelling fast. Thankfully he was wearing a helmet (as he ALWAYS does on a motorcycle). He was lucky not to have been hurt worse, but we were in the wilderness away from cell service. One of our children was on a hike with other family members, and Craig needed to get to a hospital. In the end his dad took him to town, and I stayed with the kids at camp. In the morning I drove to where I could get cell service and called Craig. He hadn't been released from the hospital until well into the night. He was told that no bones were broken! He was given a walking boot and crutches, told to ice it, elevate it, take ibuprofen, and take it easy. He was also advised to see a specialist the next week.
Our anniversary was the next day, and it was destroyed. Craig was in a lot of pain, and I was sad with a pit in my stomach. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing. His ankle and foot swelled to the size of his calf, and the entire thing was black and purple, and it hurt fiercely. When we got home from our camping trip he started to use essential oils on his leg and foot. Within about a week the bruising and swelling had diminished significantly. Within 10 days it was looking pretty great, but it still hurt to bare weight. He saw a foot and ankle dr who did more X-rays, and told us that bad sprains take a LONG time to heal, but that the ER had been right about no bones being broken. Again he was told to ice it, elevate it, use ibuprofen, and tale it easy. Two weeks later Craig was still in excruciating pain. He went back to the specialist, where more X-rays were taken and we heard the same thing over again...and the dr gave Craig an extended prescription strength note for ibuprofen. We were not told anything else about what could go wrong with healing, or what to expect in the future.
Four months later Craig had made no progress in healing. He could barely walk. There was no hope of running or hiking, or doing most of the activities we use to do. I was frustrated, because chronic pain was changing his personality. He had no patience with our children. Our daughter had been stillborn, and our lives just plain sucked.
At the beginning of November, Craig went to see a different specialist. More X-rays, and an MRI confirmed that while no bones had been broken, there was very little cartilage left in the ankle joint, bone spies had developed, and he was diagnosed with severe bone on bone arthritis. We were told that there was no hope of healing naturally, that cortisone shots might relieve the pain for awhile, but that the only way to find relief from the pain long term was an ankle fusion. We asked what Craig's abilities would be after he healed from the fusion, and the dr told us that Craig would be far better off than he was at that point. I won't go into detail, but the surgery wasn't just sugar coated, it was thrown into a pool of sugar. We scheduled the fusion for two weeks later.
After we got home from the specialist office, I began to look for accounts written by people who had had their ankles fused. I had no idea that an ankle injury often leads to arthritis and fusion. There were a lot of accounts of life after ankle fusion surgery to wade through. We found that most people are not as satisfied as the specialist had led us to believe. We found that many, if not most, still had pain to varying degrees, and they were severely limited in their abilities. It was then that we fully recognized that the motorcycle accident had left Craig permanently crippled. It was a hard blow.
As I read account after account, I found one man who mentioned that he was looking into stem cell injection therapy. I was curious. What was it? Why had we not been told about it as an option? As I researched, I became more intrigued, and we started to look into the procedure very seriously.
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