cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/54296827

Can't have shit in Detroit

And even weirder, someone put all these titanium pins in my tibia!

They didn‘t put everything back after the operation. That’s how I end up with random screws after any repair I do.

I was very confused the first time I saw this lol. I don't remember the exact reasoning, but it's very common for certain lower leg injuries

[doctor sweeping piece of bone under carpet after surgery]

Best comment I've read on Lemmy today. :D

Learning the hard way that the titanium nail gun is not a toy

They try to use it in the next operation. Somebody out there with mismatched bones. One leg longer than the other.

Titanium? In this economy?

To someone who is knowledgeable about this: how important is a fibula to the actual strucural integrity of the body?

Tibia surgery affected chronic blood loss to areas of the fibula and thus osteonecrosis of the affected bone. This patient probably has some serious health issues outside their bone health for this to happen.

As I understand it, it is primarily used to point the foot.

This is just long enough to make a literal skeleton key

😷🧹🦴📜🤫

In one of the initial reposts, someone commented there was a complete fracture and the separated part was absorbed naturally over time.

Might have been bs, as it's known to happen.

And a paternity test that doesn’t match the mother

Scientifically speaking, it was probably the fae stealing your bones.

Thats ridiculous, i do that easily with my finger!

aliens took it in his sleep

It probably was not recoverable when they repaired whatever made that Titanium splint and screws neccesary.

Edit: apparently the middle portion of the fibula is so non-essential for weight-bearing that it is the most common bone harvested for bone grafts elsewhere in the body

dog chewed on it

Are you sure it was there before? I think you where born without it.

You must be a legend among The Ministry of Silly Walks ☝🏼

Oh so the caption is completely made up

Moopsy!

More than likely just an atrophic nonunion fracture of the fibula. The tibia and fibula were probably broken at the same time, if the fibular fracture looked like it didn't need to be set they probably didn't even bother putting hardware in.

You don't really need to have any serious health issues for this. Sometimes with bones that aren't weight bearing it's just bad luck, sometimes it's because you're smoking a little too much.

This made me chuckle

Relatively little for most people. It helps with ankle stabilization, but lots of people break their fibula and don't even notice. If you're an athlete who does a lot of lateral motion, it's fairly important.

Doctors would do no such thing!

...they'd actually just waltz around the hospital with whatever fell onto the OR floor still stuck to their shoe, tracking chunks of it all over the fucking place until some some crusty 70 y/o nurse chews him out while swatting him with today's word search from the news paper.

Pretty routine stuff, really.

They should lay off the bone hurting juice

Um... so looking at the tibia, that is 100% an intramedullary tibial nail:

...which means their tibia was broken as fuck, and there's a pretty hefty chance the fibula was also broken as fuck in that same injury.

My guess is the missing segment was fragmented to the point of not being saveable, and removed during the same operation the IM nail was placed.

That doesn't necessarily mean the OP is bullshit - maybe they had some new resident docs, or nurses, or techs or w/e who hadn't seen that before and it was a genuine wtf moment for them. I love it when new staff get that look!

Not necessarily, it could be a group of people who weren't aware of removing the bone being a thing, but it's probably a lie for internet points.

Ah, I guess I assumed "everyone" referred to medical professionals involved in the treatment, and that if there was an explanation OOP knew that it would have been included, but I can see how it's possible

Just a little sip though in this case.

Someone yoinked it while you were under for surgery or something??? Lmao

Based on what I read after, given the injury to the Tibia, Mabe the Fibula's middle was sacrificed for a bone graft, rather than cutting open his good leg as well.

Is it not a problem to have part of your fibula missing? Can you operate without it?

I don't think we'd have lasted long as a species without a little bit of "redundancy".

The defibrillator strikes again!

Full disclosure: I am not a doctor.

Probably just an atrophic nonunion fracture. If it was that damaged and you were already doing a tibial nail, there wouldn't really be a reason not to do a fibular nail at the same time.

The fibula has fairly poor blood flow compared to the tibia, it's not really that rare for the fracture to never callus and bridge back together. If that happens a lot of the times the bone will be subject to resorption.

Defibulator 😂

CLEAR

...of fibias!

Doesn't really look like it's been taken out for a graft, at least not anytime recently. My bet would be he acquired a atrophic nonunion fracture the same time he broke his tibia. The rounded edges of the bone look more like they've been subject to resorption instead of being excised.

Honestly not that rare for fibular fractures, though the segment missing is fairly large. So it's probably a fairly old injury.

One time I was in the ER, and a doctor noted that my heart beat has a rather pronounced split s2 rythm which is something that doctors need to learn to discern when listening to a heartbeat, so for the next hour as I was waiting around, I had several other younger physicians stop by and say "hey I was told to come listen to your heartbeat."

Made me feel a little special in a very peculiar way I haven't known since.

I don’t know horses get pretty screwed when they break a leg even with the best medical technology at the owners disposal.

Muscle contractions and spasms will be indistinguishable between pain or pleasure. Just kidding, it will hellish if you get dehydrated and get muscle spasms. You don't need it. Source, got a rod myself.

And most of the time those screws aren't necessary anyway

I hope you got titanium. It's bio compatible with bone and will fuse together. Took about ten years for me. I was told it's not important to have a fibula but I think mine probably merged back together since it doesn't feel like razor blades in my leg.

If it makes you feel better, the picture is also old as fuck.