When I was seven, I was visiting an uncle and was run over by a tractor. My foot was cut in half and my ankle was fractured. If your not squeemish then here is the photo. I was air lifted to Indianapolis where they reconstructed my foot during many surgeries and by the next summer I was back at baseball. For the last 4-5 years I have not taken any pain medication at all. I have played baseball every summer and as my mother puts it, never sat down. But about 4 months ago I started having some really bad pain all the way up to my hip. My doctor sent me for x rays and put me on some pain medication. Well the pain medication had to be increased and increased over the next few months and we started visiting surgeons. One surgeon would send us to another surgeon and so on and so on. Eventually we ended up at Shriners in Chicago. They really looked me over, x rayed every inch they could of me. The found only one reason for the pain I had in my knee, hip, ankle, and back. My talus had collapsed. Foot is fine but it can not hold me up by itself. I need a surgery that my mothers insurance will not pay for because the only people that are advanced enough to do it are out of our network.
The first time I heard about a talus transplant was from the surgeons at Shriners in Chicago. They called a "Fresh Osteochondrial Total Ankle Allograft Transplant." I will get a bone from a cadaver that fits where mine was. Shriners does not do this surgery but told my mom and me that the options of mechanical ankles and fusion at my age would not be the right thing to do. The incidence of hardware replacement would be too frequent because they are only meant to last 10-12 years and fusion at my age would be attacked by debilitating arthritis that would lead to me loosing my lower leg in middle age. I have been braced for now and will be having talus transplant at Duke in North Carolina. Dr. DeOrio is going to raise me up with your help I hope. The surgery itself is going to cost around 45,000 to 50,000 dollars. We even found out that although the bone comes from a donor, it costs Duke between 7,000 and 10,000 because of the level of testing/preparation that is done to it before it will be put in me. My mom will work all she can before the surgery but will need to take a little time off when I come home from the hospital, probably 2 weeks. She is working as much as her job will let her now so that she has some vacation time when they find a donor match for my ankle. My mom has already made sure that she can stay with me when I have the surgery and this month we go down for measuring to be put on the donor list and we will be staying in the Ronald Mcdonald house if they have room when we get there. But even the gas to get this far has been a struggle for my mom. My mom spoke to Darphene, who is a financial consultant at Duke, and after finding out what the surgery is expected to cost, we were advised to make this website and ask for help. Please help me have this surgery and keep me and my mom in your prayers.
The first time I heard about a talus transplant was from the surgeons at Shriners in Chicago. They called a "Fresh Osteochondrial Total Ankle Allograft Transplant." I will get a bone from a cadaver that fits where mine was. Shriners does not do this surgery but told my mom and me that the options of mechanical ankles and fusion at my age would not be the right thing to do. The incidence of hardware replacement would be too frequent because they are only meant to last 10-12 years and fusion at my age would be attacked by debilitating arthritis that would lead to me loosing my lower leg in middle age. I have been braced for now and will be having talus transplant at Duke in North Carolina. Dr. DeOrio is going to raise me up with your help I hope. The surgery itself is going to cost around 45,000 to 50,000 dollars. We even found out that although the bone comes from a donor, it costs Duke between 7,000 and 10,000 because of the level of testing/preparation that is done to it before it will be put in me. My mom will work all she can before the surgery but will need to take a little time off when I come home from the hospital, probably 2 weeks. She is working as much as her job will let her now so that she has some vacation time when they find a donor match for my ankle. My mom has already made sure that she can stay with me when I have the surgery and this month we go down for measuring to be put on the donor list and we will be staying in the Ronald Mcdonald house if they have room when we get there. But even the gas to get this far has been a struggle for my mom. My mom spoke to Darphene, who is a financial consultant at Duke, and after finding out what the surgery is expected to cost, we were advised to make this website and ask for help. Please help me have this surgery and keep me and my mom in your prayers.
How it happened