Shit, sorry to hear the troubles aren't going away Larry...  As long as there is light in the tunnel, keep looking forward.  Hoping this surgery is a major step.

Wishing you, your femur, and your daughter all the best!

Larry, it's always refreshing to hear you talk medicine.  "I have no other symptoms of too much opioids" 

Sounds like things are not as good as they could be, but far better than where they were a few months ago.  McKenna seems to be doing very well, or at least she's not letting injury and pain stand between her and what she wants to do.  That's really encouraging news.

Keep at it, man.  You're still here, and the line is trending up.

Shit, sorry to hear the troubles aren't going away Larry...  As long as there is light in the tunnel, keep looking forward.  Hoping this surgery is a major step.

Wishing you, your femur, and your daughter all the best!

This.

Hang in there, buddy!

Sending positive vibes your way.

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Best wishes for this next surgery, Larry... for an improved and hopefully as good as new left femur.  Your daughter seems wise to delay her ankle fusion surgery, and is obviously bright and ambitious to be managing all of this while still performing well at Duke.  Not an easy way to go to college, but it is what it is and she's soldiered on.  Can't imagine anything ever stopping that girl from pursuing her dreams if this hasn't!  You must be enormously proud of her, and it's good to know that there is some insurance money to pay for her college costs and set her up reasonably for law school.  The ongoing medical costs are so hard to predict, so quite wise of you to be planning as best you can for that as well.  In the meantime, all the best with the day by day.

^ This. Best wishes, Larry.

Wish you the very best and speedy recovery.  Same to your daughter as well.

^ this

All the best to you and McKenna and your family Larry.  May you and your daughter heal quickly and heal well.  What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.

^ this

Bad stuff, HPA. Lots of prayers heading your way.

Larry, best wishes to you and your family. I hope at the end of this tough journey both you an McKenna get back on your feet and past this horrible accident. 

Wishing you continued healing.

Thanks everyone.  This has been a really tough time for us.  Sometimes just having to make the hard decisions, or having choices forced upon us, is as painful as the physical sequelae we're experiencing.  So much is going on that it's hard to go with the flow - I have think 5 steps ahead like playing chess.

I would have preferred to just try the simple outpatient procedure of removing the lower screw in my femur rod/nail, so that my upper femur could settle down further onto the lower femur at the site of the fracture, and we'd know in 4-6 weeks if it was successful.  That was the second option presented to me by my doctor (rod replacement was 1st), but it was less invasive and less dangerous with me having only one working lung - it could keep me from needing the more invasive and expensive procedure.

But my health insurance company would likely make me wait 8-12 weeks after the simple procedure before allowing them to replace the rod if this failed, pushing the $50K surgery out to 2016 with a new $3K deductible and another $5K max out of pocket.  We've already had to meet our deductible for 2014 and 2015 for this accident, and don't want to pay it a 3rd year in a row for the same injury/accident.  

As I waffled over this decision my surgeon invited me to go to Vegas with him because it would still be gambling but more fun.

I think you're making the right choice, doing the more invasive procedure this year.  As long as our country has profit based health care, these are the kinds of decisions that have to be made.

At least this time I wont be going under anesthesia right after a huge trauma.

I found a couple of sharper photos of our car after the accident.  The right side has no doors because they had to use the "jaws of life" to get me out.  The front end was entirely caved in and flat, and the dashboard came into the passenger compartment by several inches so we didn't have room for our legs to stay intact.  Combined impact speed was about 100mph between the two vehicles.

More nasty photos I couldn't post until the case was settled - my right knee and left ankle postop.

Spoiler tags if you please ... Are those birth year staples?

Spoiler tags if you please ... Are those birth year staples?

21 staples for drinking age - and serious about the spoiler tags?  I can edit if I have to...

Not so much for me, but I can I imagine others being put off their food / beverage / sleep, if they weren't anticipating / expecting such things. Glad you are in a position to be able to debate the merits / trade-offs, and have options. Better than the alternative.

Larry, wishing you and your daughter luck in the recovery. I had a light wreck with my kids a couple years ago and it shook my daughter up, even thought she was just bruised a little. I can't imagine what you guys have been through, trauma wise. You're in my thoughts.

**BRENT**

Best of luck in your recoveries, Larry and daughter!

I wish I knew what to say.  Eventual cheers to you and your family.

The trend sounds like is going in the right direction. That's good. But the whole painful, frustrating situation blows. Hang in there!

I don't miss my staples. They went far too low in the nether regions for comfort. Good luck HPA!

Still waiting for approval from my health insurance company - they made me wait 9 months to do anything else because their guidelines say it's not a "non-union" until after 9 months.  So they better not give us a fight over this.

So I'm heading up to Denver to spend the night before surgery, since my checkin time for surgery is 5:30am and I'd rather make the hour and a half drive tonight.  Thanks for the prayers and well wishes.