My girlfriend has foot pain after a traffic accident. She back ended somebody at 30 mph and must have banged her foot. No fractures were found on the first x-ray, so she was sent home and told the pain would go away. She reduced her activity level, but did walk on it, occasionally for exercise, and the pain remained. She then got a bone scan and was told by a new doctor, "you have a displaced bone, the ligaments were damaged and have now healed wrong, if we knew this 6 weeks ago right after your accident, we would have pinned the bone in place and your ligament would have healed fine. Now your ligament is healed wrong and you are left with 2 choices: fuse the bones in the right place, at risk of later arthritis, or graft some new ligament - which might or might not work." If she does the bone fuse, she's looking at one operation, a "pretty standard operation" with 3 months healing. If she choses the experimental operation, she has the same healing time, and the risk of it not working, in which case she has to then have the bone fuse done anyway. What do you think? (I'm in NYState but can travel.)
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