Failure Testing

In a recent email, my buddy Chris Bersbach referred to my recent climbing exploits as “failure testing the hardest work of California’a medical professionals”. I jokingly responded by saying, “Oddly the only thing I've been testing to failure has been my 2 middle fingers and my rope from the numerous whippers it's catching off the crux of Hardboiled”. Well, neither Chris, nor I, nor anyone who’s watched the progress made these past months would have bet on the results of the most current Xray, but let me warm you all up properly for the “big news”.

On Sunday I loaded the Mini with some climbing gear, a small suitcase and a very special twelve pack of Olympia and headed for Bob’s cabin in Tom’s Place. Upon departure I joked that I was planning on returning Tuesday evening, but may have to stay over because Dr. Karch was surely gonna love the way the leg was looking and may want to remove some of the “now unnecessary” hardware. Everyone was psyched. After 11 months we were out of the woods and well on the road to recovery.

I arrived early in the evening to Bob and Nuke relaxing on the porch. The two had spent most of the afternoon celebrating their first big mountain together. They bagged a 12,000 ft plus peak before lunch - Nukes first “real mountain” as Bob put it. After a few warm up brews and some tasty pizza out at Convict Lake we headed home to tackle the twelve pack. After all I was roaming around the cabin cane free and was already climbing better than pre accident. So we drank the shit out of that thing, and then the following day we went and checked out the Warming Wall in Mammoth. The very short approach was the main attraction, but even in the heat, we agreed the crag had more than a few star worthy moderates. Bob noted the same phenomena that many had already noticed - while climbing I almost look healthy. I’ll say it again: The leg’s been feeling great.

Ok, now back to the xray... It didn’t take a physician to see that the bones were bowing severely - maybe 10-15 degrees in right in the middle of the main fracture site. Fuck me. Seems there’s a few explanations for this. The first is that the bones were set that way originally (but they weren’t), the second is that there’s an infection that has resurfaced and eaten away at the bones leading to their fragility, and third that the bones simply never healed and the weight I’ve been applying has slowly bent the partially healed soft bone. So, over the next few days, Dr. Karch will go over some blood test results, get ahold of my Santa Barbara films and confer with his associates to come up with a plan. He wasn’t willing to say much before doing so, but it sounds like the plan will probably be to pop out all the screws (all 17 of them plus the plate), externally fixate the leg and then slowly torque it back straight over the coming months. This is all assuming the bone is still soft and there’s no infection. Otherwise, the situation is different.

I could tell Dr. Karch was frustrated. I knew I was frustrated. He may not have been thinking this, but I sure as hell started to doubt the care I have been receiving in Santa Barbara. Most specifically the call made my the local orthopedic surgeon to start applying full body weight a few months back. Even more worrisome is that the local Doc then told me a check up would be unnecessary for 3 months. Yet somehow, over those 3 months the leg bowed a shit ton. Grrrrrr. Who knows? Of course I wanna blame someone, but maybe thats not fair.

After the appointment I got in the Mini and drove home, all the while trying to get psyched for the coming weeks. After tossing around a few extreme ideas, reality settled in. The plan is no different than its always been. The leg is gonna take a LONG time to get strong again, and maybe a little longer than I expected. Fine. I’ll keep doing what I can along the way. That means continuing to prepare for school this fall, creatively keeping myself financially afloat, and attacking the campus boards with a fury equal to the pain of a double compound fracture.

Video: 1 - 6 bump 7 triple on the bigs