TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Hernando Today

Procrastination Has Drawbacks

ADVERTISEMENT

By VIRGINIA DIAZ

Hernando Today correspondent

Published: July 12, 2008

The simple pleasure of walking the dog was one Woody Marr wanted to experience. He wanted to re-claim the role of a fully active partner in the real estate business he shares with his wife, Monica. A false step taken nearly 5 years ago took all that away from him. He fell shattering his ankle and fracturing his way of life. Even though the injury was painful, Marr believed he was too busy to take care of it.
"I didn't want to go to the doctor because I knew I was in trouble and I'd have to have something done and I didn't want to do it," Marr recalls. He decided to grin and bear it. "In retrospect, it was a bad choice," says Marr. He spent the next 4 and a half years walking around on a shattered ankle.
Marr isn't the first person to play down the importance of having an ankle injury examined by a doctor. According to the American Academy of Orthopedic surgeons, a severe sprain often masks the symptoms of a broken ankle. But in Marr's case, there was one sure sign that things weren't right — his ankle became deformed.
"It grew back wrong. It grew on twisted out and turned in," Marr explains.
He managed to live with the pain but it was taking a toll."
"My wife and I are both Re/Max agents. If was difficult to walk through homes, to show property without it becoming evident that I was in pain and I did not want to make it uncomfortable for the customers so I just had to grin and bear it."
"He did everything from his desk and on the phone," says Monica. The burden of work and running their home fell to her alone.
The pain got worse. Marr started feeling it in his knee and his hip. He went to see his doctor for a check up last fall and told him what he was experiencing. The doctor took X-rays that revealed fractures. "You're one tough son of a gun," Marr recalls the doctor telling him. Fortunately it was not too late to do something about it.
Marr found a surgeon through word of mouth. Because of the way the ankle healed, the surgeon explained to him he would have to re-break the ankle to straighten it out. Putting it back together again would require three screws and a fusion.
Marr checked in to Oak Hill Hospital last October. The procedure took five hours. "He basically reconstructed some of the ankle and put some screws in. I  have a large incision with like 30 staples in the front of my foot," says Marr.
Normally, an ankle reconstruction, even one as complex as Marr's requires one night — possibly two in the hospital. A life threatening reaction to a pain medication affecting his heart kept Marr in the hospital for five days. Marr's heart recovered quickly. His ankle rehabilitation ultimately took about six months.
When Marr left the Oak Hill he was in a cast. He'd been given lessons using a walker before the surgery. But in the beginning he couldn't put any weight on it at all.
"I mean I would just lay there. There was nothing I could do. There was three, four, five days before I could get the courage to hobble out."
Slowly, Marr went through the steps. From the full cast and walker, he went to a walking cast. When the cast finally came off, Marr was practically born again.
"We were very careful and we did exactly what the doctor said and it turned out marvelous. I have no pain whatsoever in my hip anymore. My knee doesn't bother me. My ankle doesn't bother me. I'm pretty grateful. I'm thrilled."
Marr says the reason he's sharing his story is to urge others not to do what he did. "I really believe they (people) don't do things because they're afraid of surgery or the inconvenience in their daily life. I guess I really believe that they just don't know that the outcome normally is better than what they have," Marr says.
"So the lesson I learned is that if you hurt yourself, go to a doctor and get fixed because otherwise it's going to be a lot more costly."
The Marr's are back to doing things together again. They're back in business and they've got 16-month-old Golden Retriever KoKo, in their life.
Says Monica, "Having KoKo I think has hastened his recovery, it's taken his mind off his ankle and it's given him a reason to go out and walk around."
Marr himself intends to use KoKo to help spread his message and share his gratitude. "If there's anyone out there who can benefit from knowledge. It's like we're training our dog to be a therapy dog so we can take him to homes and let the elderly learn the happiness of petting a pet — or to a children's hospital. And that's giving back to the community."

Virginia Diaz writes regularly for the Hernando Today Health Today section. She lives in Brooksville and can be contacted at virginia.diaz61@gmail.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT