Ankle spiral fracture recovery time8/26/2023 ![]() “I’ve told people, if you could experience the relief and the joy of crossing the finish line, everyone would do it,” he said. Then his buddy peeled off, letting Mendez cross the finish line by himself. “The last couple of miles he was telling me how awesome it was, how I’d overcome the accident. A running buddy who had trained with Mendez joined him for the last half of the race, pacing him and offering encouragement. “I just thought about how awesome it would feel once I crossed the finish line,” he said. On race day, he was focused, which helped get him through the pain and fatigue. For mental preparation, he said, “I watched iron man videos, videos of other people overcoming things.” Two weeks before the race, he tested himself, running 40 miles in 24 hours. He also focused on weightlifting, “to know, in my mind, that the leg was strong enough.” But he gradually increased his running distances. “There were a couple of times when I was like, ‘Oh, boy, I don’t know if I’m ready,’” he said. ![]() Melissa wanted to hear for herself that I was cleared to run.”įrom February through April, Mendez devoted himself to preparing for the race. “I had to have her on speaker phone for that last appointment. ![]() Reilly signed off on me doing the race,” Mendez said. At the end of January, he graduated from physical therapy. In November, they gave him the go-ahead to walk on a treadmill in December, he progressed to light running. Given his injuries, he chose a less daunting-but still ambitious-challenge: He registered for the 50-miler, a scant seven months away.Īs eager as Mendez was to get back to full activity, he followed the advice of his Duke physical therapists. Just before the accident, he’d begun training for his first 100-mile ultramarathon. “My broken leg was half the size of my good leg.” He also wanted a goal to work toward. “My first focus was just to get my strength back,” he said. In mid-September, Mendez started physical therapy. “It has been shown to improve the time to healing.” “It’s a small ultrasound machine that patients place directly at their fracture site,” she said. He couldn’t put weight on the foot for six weeks following the July 2016 surgery, but he could do range-of-motion exercises. “But at places like Duke that are Level I trauma centers, that have orthopaedic surgeons who are fellowship trained in orthopaedic trauma, those kinds of options become more available to patients.”įastened together, Mendez’s bones began to heal-a process that would take some time. “The closer to the ankle a fracture gets, the more some surgeons might shy away from using the intramedullary nail,” said Dr. But not all orthopaedic surgeons would have been comfortable doing this type of procedure. This approach would allow him to put weight on his leg sooner than other surgical options-an important factor for an avid athlete like Mendez. She also placed screws just above the ankle to fix that portion of the fracture. This included inserting a rod called an intramedullary nail down the center of his shinbone, then placing screws at the top and bottom to hold it in place. Reilly performed surgery to repair his fractures. The following week, when the swelling had subsided, Dr. Reilly was one of nine Duke orthopaedic surgeons-including foot-and-ankle and sports-medicine experts-who looked at Mendez’s X-rays and CT scan and consulted on his case.
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