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repulsivepangolin7 · 5 years ago

Text

Fic: Movement

Building on: ‘Earthquake’ ‘Night out’ ‘An old buddy’

Word count: 2226

*Another few months later*

“Now, Mr. Luca…” the doctor smiled, “Are you ready to get this cast off for good?”

Luca took a deep breath, steeling himself. “Sure.”

“You’re going to have to wear a brace until after the knee surgery we have planned.” the doctor informed as he prepared the gear to remove the cast.

“Are you sure it’s okay to drop the cast?” Luca hated how shaky his voice felt, “My leg was crushed.”

The doctor nodded, “The X-rays, and the CatScan show that all the breaks have fused. If it wasn’t for your knee, I would’ve set you up with a physical therapist to teach you to walk again.”

Luca nodded, “I can barely believe that I’ve come this far already…”

The doctor nodded, “Starting to look like keeping your leg was the correct choice.”

“It was a bad injury…”

“Sure was.” the doctor nodded, “Any one of the injury types you got could have been indicators to amputate your leg. If that rotary dislocation your knee suffered had torn your popliteal artery, or pressed against it and not been reset in timely fashion, that would not have made your leg viable. The fractures you suffered were extensive enough to question if it would heal, even with surgery… And on top of that, we have the crush injury which wreaked havoc on your muscles and soft tissues, causing compartment syndrome and might have killed off your muscle tissue.”

Luca swallowed hard.

“You got lucky.” the doctor smiled.

“Yeah, I really did.” Luca nodded, “So… When I have surgery to reconstruct my knee… What will that mean.”

“Oh…” The doctor nodded as he picked up the cast scissors, “Dislocating your knee, you tore your anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments. That’s the bands inside your knee which keeps the shin bone from sliding back and forward relative to the femur, -the bone in your thigh.”

Luca nodded.

“On top of that, you tore your medial and lateral collateral ligaments. That’s bands on either side of your knee. Those stabilize your knee sideways. With all four of those bands torn, your knee depends on the muscles in your leg to keep it somewhat stabile.”

Luca nodded.

“Now, some top level athletes tear some of these bands every now and then. Take hockey players for instance, they usually have so much strength in their legs that surgery won’t be necessary. -Of course with some exceptions.” The doctor explained, “You on the other hand…”

“I don’t have any muscles left in that leg…” Luca nodded.

“Well, most of the muscles are still there, but they’re not what they used to be. They won’t be able to keep your knee from dislocating in either the same way as it did, or in more typical ways.”

“Well, we don’t want that…” Luca frowned.

“No, we don’t.” the doctor nodded, “You also injured your menisci… Both of them in that leg. Small tears will heal on its own over time, but unfortunately you have a complete buckethandle tear of one of them and one that’s slightly smaller in the other one. Those might lock your knee up if you were to use your leg. Now, your knee locking up from a buckethandle meniscus tear isn’t exatctly dangerous in any normal way, but I have it on good authority that it’s incredibly painful.”

Luca grimaced, “Yeah, don’t want that either.”

The doctor nodded, “So what we’re going to do is clean up the torn ligaments, and smaller nicks in your menisci. Then we’re going to use grafts from either your hamstring muscles in the opposite leg, or donor grafts, as your new ligaments. And we’ll be sewing the big tears of your menisci.”

“Donor grafts?”

“Yeah. Sometimes your own tissue won’t be right for your knee. Either because you’ve lost too much mass from where the graft would be taken, and to cut out a decent graft would leave you with a deficit in the healthy leg. Or because the site of the graft has some injury that would make the graft likely to fail. For example, we often use patella tendon grafts to fix ligament tears in the knees. Your left patella tendon wouldn’t be suited for that since we had to reattach about half of that tendon after the earthquake.”

Luca nodded for a bit, but had one more question for the doctor before he got as far as to start cutting up the cast.

“How much pain will I be in after the knee surgery? Don’t sugarcoat it.”

The doctor looked up from where he had placed one hand on Luca’s cast, “That’s not an easy question to answer. Grafts from your own body will hurt where they’re taken from. Think of it as having a partial tear in a muscle. It’s about the same pain. I know you’ve had that before.”

Luca nodded, “Yeah, tore some of my bicep tendon or muscle once. My whole arm was painful and bruised after that.”

The doctor nodded, “With donor grafts you won’t have that, but grafts from your own body is preferred in most cases. Less chance of graft failure.”

Luca nodded.

“The reconstruction itself varies a lot. I have some patients who experience minimal pain and swelling, and I have patients who experiences a lot of both as well.” The doctor shrugged, “Some never really need the aid of crutches after the ligament surgeries, and some will need it for a couple of weeks after. But you’re going to have to use crutches for a month afterwards anyway, since we have to sew up your menisci as well.”

Luca nodded. “Okay, and does that hurt?”

“Most patients feel fine after that surgery, in my experience.” The doctor winked, “Slight swelling might occur, but not usually accompanied by pain.”

Luca nodded.

“Now, I’m going to start clipping up your cast. Any more questions before I start?”

Luca shook his head.

SWATSWATSWAT

The best way to describe his leg when it was finally de-casted was skin and bones. -And scars. But then again, he hadn’t used any of the muscles in it for months now.

“The scars look good now…” the doctor offered up a satisfied smile, “Even where you ended up having that infection early on…”

Luca nodded, “It’s still a bit redder than the others, though.”

“Yeah, but you can think of it like this, it started healing a lot later than the other scars.”

Luca nodded.

“Can you try moving your ankle for me?” the doctor guided the conversation, showing with his hands how he wanted Luca to move his foot.

“Just go ahead and try?”

The doctor nodded.

Luca tried, but it was like the wrong muscles responded when he tried, and it didn’t work out so well in the first place either. “I can’t…”

“Let me try this one thing first, before you start worrying.”

Luca nodded.

“I’m going to grab your foot and above your ankle and manipulate it a bit. Just let me know if anything’s painful.”

Luca nodded again, and the doctor took hold of his leg.

“That feels weird.” Luca said as soon as he felt the doctor’s hands on his foot.

“Does it hurt?”

“No, just feels weird.” Luca shrugged.

“Okay, I’m going to slowly start moving your foot up and down a few times, that will probably feel really weird as well.”

Luca nodded.

“Just let me know when I need to stop.”

“Sure thing.” Luca nodded.

SWATSWATSWAT

The doctor was right, it did feel really weird. His ankle had been locked in one position ever since the injury.

The doctor moved his ankle like he was making Luca speed and slow down a car, without using the breaks. He made the motions smooth and paused at each turn.

It felt like he was gradually making the movement bigger, but Luca couldn’t exactly be sure without looking.

“Ah, stop, stop!” Luca winced on one of the turns as the doctor pressed his toes up.

The doctor backed up the movement a bit, “That hurt?”

“Stretched my calf like crazy…” Luca cleared his voice, “Can you go back there again? I just wasn’t prepared…”

“Sure…” the doctor nodded and eased back to the position which had made Luca squirm, “Want me to hold it in this position for a bit?”

Luca thought, then nodded.

After about fifteen seconds the doctor started pressing Luca’s foot back down to a position he felt like Luca could handle, “Now, if you try to move your foot with me, it might be easier for you to connect with the correct muscles when you’re going to try it yourself the next time.”

Luca nodded, and tried.

The doctor chuckled once, “Now, try to relax your thigh. That’s not the right muscle groups. Neither is your seat.”

Luca laughed, “it’s really hard.”

“That’s alright. It is to be expected.” The doctor reassured. “You haven’t moved your ankle in about five-six months, and with all the damage from the injury… It’ll be exactly like learning to move from scratch.”

Luca nodded.

“There, you’re doing great!” the doctor grinned, “Can you feel that you’re using the right muscles now?”

Luca grinned, “Yeah, yeah I think so…”

“I’m going to let go of your foot, try to keep moving it just like we’re doing now…”

Luca nodded, and continued the motion when he felt the doctor let go.

The doctor watched for a few rounds, an amused look on his face. “Well, I’ll be damned…”

Luca paused, “What?”

“You’re impressing me…” the doctor grinned, “Usually I would expect that anyone who had a similar injury to the one you’ve had, would develop drop foot. That they would be unable to lift the front of their foot properly, or raise their toes… You’re actually leading with your toes when you raise your foot. I did not expect that.”

“So, good thing?”

“Great thing.” The doctor nodded, “Now, over to the next exercise… Can you try to move your foot sideways like this…”

The doctor explained the movement by showing it with his hands once more.

“Can you make my stupid muscles understand which of them is supposed to work first?”

“Sure thing…” the doctor nodded and carefully grabbed Luca’s foot, “We’ll start rotating it inward a bit.”

Luca nodded, but yelped when the doctor gently rotated his food a few small degrees.

“I’m sorry, that sounded like it hurt…” the doctor apologized, “Can you tell me where?”

“That stabbed at my knee…”Luca answered, trying to ride out a grimace.

“Okay, like through the joint? From the side in some kind of way?”

Luca nodded, “Just like that…”

“Inside or outside of your knee?”

“Mostly inside.”

“That’s probably your medial meniscus disagreeing with the movement. We’ll skip inward rotation for now.”

Luca nodded.

“Let’s try rotating it the other way.”

Luca nodded again.

The sharp inhale Luca did caused the doctor to stop, “Sorry. That hurts as well?”

“Not as much, but it’s not good…” Luca nodded.

“Same spot?”

“Yeah, not as much… But the back outside of my knee doesn’t like that motion.” Luca shrugged once the doctor had helped his foot back in a normal position. “Not as painful as the other way, but… Still painful.”

The doctor nodded, “Okay, we’ll just wait with rotation until after your knee surgery. Since it’s causing you this much pain.”

Luca nodded.

“Does it hurt anywhere else than your knee when we tried rotating your foot?”

Luca shook his head, “No, didn’t hurt anywhere else. Tingled a bit above where some of your fingers were, but not anything I can call painful.”

“Alright, that’s good.” The doctor smiled, “Then that problem will likely solve itself once we’ve taken care of your menisci…”

“Cool…” Luca grinned.

“Now, try to just relax here while I go grab the brace you’ll be wearing.” The doctor instructed, “I don’t think you’ll need a drop foot brace, but I’ll bring one anyway. Justin case you overwork your leg and it gets too sore to keep your foot neutral.”

Luca nodded, and started gently moving his foot up and down once more.

“That’s great.” The doctor grinned, “And I want you to keep working on that, the goal is to eventually get the same range of motion as in your healthy leg. -But I also don’t want you to start out too hard. You’ll be sore from basically doing nothing now at the start. So don’t over-do it too much, alright?”

Luca nodded, “I’ll try.”

The doctor nodded and went out the door.

SWATSWATSWAT

“Look at you…” Street grinned as Luca came hobbling towards where he sat and waited, “How does it feel?”

“A lot lighter…”Luca chuckled, “Feels a bit odd.”

“Did the doctor say anything?”

“That it was looking good.” Luca beamed, “And that everything was ready for the knee surgery.”

“That’s awesome.”

Luca nodded, “Hey, we should invite the team over tomorrow night.”

“You up for that?”

Luca rolled his eyes a little, “I’ve been out with you guys like four-five times since my injury. I can take a party at home by now.”

“Just messing with you…” Street grinned, “I say we order a few pizzas to go along with it.”

“Deal!” Luca grinned, “Now don’t tell too much about my leg to the team if they ask this afternoon or on tomorrow’s shift.”

“I’ll try.”

#dominic luca #Dominique Luca #Luca #swat #s.w.a.t #swat fanfiction #hurt #hurtcomfort #cast #injury #jim street #Street

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