This is a long one. And I'm hoping for help from anyone in the know about ankle injuries.
So I had a silly accident back in mid march falling off a pony. My foot got caught as I fell and the outer side of my ankle immediately ballooned. Fell onto my bum. Got taken to A&E convinced I'd broken it as I felt it snap. Ambulance person who helped me out of car into wheelchair said looks more like ligament damage rather than bone. Anyway, sat for a few hours and finally got xrayed, showed small avulsion fracture on the inside of the ankle. Handed crutches and told to go home. Nowhere else was checked. Fainted in waiting room after taking two steps with crutches but no help offered and I took a taxi home once I'd come round. Bruising that developed was all the way up to my knee, severe swelling, horrific pain. Fracture clinic a couple of days later, I asked if there was anything else going on. Was told no, only avulsion fracture (and some people feel pain differently to others) so to wear a boot for 2 weeks and all would be fine. 2/3 weeks later I phoned and said ankle is still severely painful, could they please do additional imaging to see what else was going on. Waiting another 3 weeks for appointment. Was refused MRI but offered US. Waited another 3 weeks for this, then another 3 weeks for results. I was attempting physio in this time but then was paused due to extreme pain levels. So US was inconclusive and MRI was finally requested. This only took 10 days but then waited over a month for the results appointment. At this point they decided that as my ankle was still giving way, still struggling to fully weight bear and still causing severe pain that I probably need surgery and so I was discharged from the hip consultant and transferred to the foot and ankle team. Am currently 2 weeks into a 6 week wait to see the ankle surgeon to discuss pros and cons of reconstruction procedure.
I wore a walking boot for 9 weeks, can't now walk for more than 5 minutes without a lot of pain. It gives way randomly and then can't weight bear for an hour. I can do stairs but it's so painful I limit it as much as possible so at most I go upstairs once a day. MRI showed full thickness tear of ATFL and sprain of CFL, also a tear of deltoid and spring ligaments, bone contusion in distal tibia, moderate ankle joint effusion with synovitis and moderate tendinosis of the tendo achilles.
I have been unable to return to work so far due to pain in my ankle, the fractured coccyx that nobody noticed and the mental breakdown that I have had because I have been so floored by this injury that several doctors told me I was making too much of and needed to push through the 'mild' pain I was having.
So WWYD? Is it a complaint? Or is it a solicitor job? Also, any advice on the surgery would be awesome too if anyone can help. I am a single parent of 5 with dogs, ponies, cats etc and no local support network so the last 5 months have been truly awful and I will need the recovery period to be as quick as I can possibly make it.
Well done to anyone that made it to the end and thank you for any responses