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Deborah’s Ankle Hardware…
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Deborah’s Ankle Hardware Removal Dilemma

March 25, 2019


Meet Deborah

I like to climb. I like to hike. I like to go other places in the world, and I’ve trekked in Nepal. I’ve climbed Kilimanjaro in Africa. I was in Guatemala for five weeks; I was studying Spanish. At the end of the trip, my daughter and I had scheduled a climb. It was the third-highest volcano in Guatemala; it’s called a catonango. It’s a steep climb, and it’s also volcanic ash so it’s slippery. What I felt was a pop and I also heard it, so I knew something had happened. I broke the fibula and the malleolus and some of the ligaments were detached. Our guide he picked me up and carried me the rest of the way to the trailhead on his back.

What’s going through my mind is I’m in Guatemala and I don’t want to go to the hospital here. [Laughs] And I was thinking how am I gonna get home. When I got back to the states, I called doc and told him about the injury. They met the car outside, put me in a wheelchair. It was fast and easy, and everyone was very kind. I was diagnosed, examined, diagnosed, and I was in surgery within two hours. Doc was the best solution for me because everything was immediate. It was fast and also I didn’t have the financial burden of going to the emergency room. I was in a boot for a period of time and non-weightbearing for a period of time, and since then I had physical therapy.

And in the last few weeks I’ve been able to do really long hard hikes. I climbed a 14,000-foot peak in Colorado week before last. So my healing has been marvelous. When you’re active and suddenly not mobile, I think it’s nice to be treated the way I was treated at doc because it’s a lifechanging event, at least for a little while. So the personal touch there made me feel comfortable. It’s the best way to go.

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