Shelly is Out of Surgery

Hello everyone! Back to the "guest author" until Shelly gets near the Internet again. She went into surgery around 11:00 today and got out about 3 hours later. Things were complicated by the fact that the doctor couldn't find the part of the screw that broke off and did not want to leave it in there. He eventually got it, so Shelly no longer has a screw loose . . . in her knee. :-)
For those of us trying to figure out what exactly they were doing, we have some more drawings. As you may recall from one of the early posts Shelly's femur was broken in so many places they put a plate next to her femur and screwed the pieces of bone in place so they could grow together. Well, they never did. So today they removed the plate, the screws and the broken pieces of bone and extended the unbroken part of her femur (thigh bone) with a metal rod down to where her knee is. The new artificial knee is built right into that rod. It looks like this:

Typically, they will also run a rod down the shin bone for more stability. Although this is a lot more invasive than they typically prefer for a normal knee replacement, this gives Shelly the best chance for a very strong and stable leg going forward. In fact the doctor hopes that the strength she will eventually get in this leg will take some pressure off the right leg where she still has to deal with a dead talus bone in her ankle.
Shelly will be in the hospital (St. Mary's) only a few days, but she will be limited to only about 25% weight baring on that leg for about 6 weeks so the cement they use can dry. Losing the freedom she fought so hard to get back will be difficult. But we are hopeful this will be a key step toward even more freedom later. So please keep her in your prayers for a speedy and thorough recovery.