Shattered Talus Report / Analysis

I'm about five months out from my talar fracture, and doing well now! Because reading this thread made me feel less alone during a very stressful time, I thought I'd write out my experience in case it's helpful to others. I think the most useful thing to others would be if I shared my timeline for recovery, since I had no idea what to expect going into it, and progress felt very, very slow.

The injury and surgery: I fell about 12' while bouldering at an indoor gym, and landed funny on the mat. I went to the ER right away, and it ended up being a displaced talar fracture. I had the ORIF surgery the next morning, which took six hours because, as the surgeon described it, my ankle was "bone dust." Ended up getting nine screws, two plates, and a cadaver bone transplant, and spending two nights in the hospital.

Month 1 (yes, a full month): The absolute worst!! Was in so much pain. Oxycontin and Tylenol round the clock, Dulcocet and Senna to help with constipation due to narcotics, daily injections of Lovenox (blood thinner) for the first week, lots of trouble sleeping. Stayed in bed with my foot elevated about 23 hours per day. Super emotional. Read a lot about AVN online and got freaked out. Couldn't work at all (my job is pretty physical). Depended heavily on my my partner, neighbors, and friends for logistical support (e.g., meals, household chores, other logistical things). I read, watched TV, and had anyone over who offered to come visit me (I'm an extrovert, so being around people helped a lot). It was a rough time.

Month 2: Able to handle short outings on crutches, but still needed to elevate my foot wherever I went (restaurant, car ride, etc). Getting out of the house helped with my mood. Finally off all the meds except Tylenol. Medical marijuana is legal in my state, and I found CBD tincture helpful for sleep and pain management. Started physical therapy twice a week (I'm still doing PT 2x/week, five months later). The swelling while vertical was still pretty uncomfortable, so I could only be upright for 20 minutes before I needed to rest and elevate again.

Month 3: Still completely non-weight bearing, but not in any pain and able to work part-time. Self-care (bathing, feeding myself, pain management, physical therapy) still took up about half my day, because the simplest tasks took forever to do on crutches. But I felt like I had somewhat of a life again. Able to be up and about for an hour or two at at time before the swelling became too uncomfortable.

Month 4: Got the green light to be weight bearing after 12 weeks. I thought that this moment was going to be the light at the end of the tunnel -- I was counting down. But this period ended up being really difficult, both physically and emotionally. My surgeon and PT thought I would only need 7-10 days to transition into walking, but it ended up taking six weeks from this point! I had very sharp pains in my ankle, heel, and balls of my toes every time I put weight on the injured ankle. This intense pain was unexpected and demoralizing, and it felt like I was starting from scratch. I had to slow down and use crutches to support most of my weight while re-learning to walk (in order to not develop a limp). I started seeing a chiropractor who specializes in Active Release Therapy (a highly effective type of tissue work), and those weekly appointments ended up fixing all of the pain over the next six weeks. Physical therapy helped too, but the ART was seriously a miracle for me. I don't know where I'd be now without it. (Bay Area folks: Brian Rizzo is a miracle worker! Go see him! yelp.com/biz/brian-rizzo-dc…)

Month 5: Finally ditched the crutches completely!! Religious physical therapy and chiro appointments fixed the pain issue, so at 18 weeks after the injury, I was finally crutch-free and walking around with proper form (i.e., not limping). I'm at about 20 weeks (five months) out now, and I'm able to be on my feet almost all day. If I don't rest for part of the day, my ankle will feel achey and a little swollen at the end of the day, but I finally don't *feel* disabled. I have no signs of AVN yet, but my surgeon says I'll keep getting x-rays for another two years or so just to be safe. I'm not allowed to run or jump yet, but I've been cleared for yoga and gentle biking on a stationary bike. I don't think my ankle will ever feel as good as new, but I'm (finally) optimistic that I can get back to biking, running, and generally being active at some point in the next year.

To conclude, just wanted to say that TALUS FRACTURES ARE THE WORST! I've had three other ORIFs before this one (radius, ulna, and olecranon/elbow), and this one was by far the most painful, most disruptive to my life, and most demoralizing. But I'm finally coming out the other end of it! Yay! So if you're currently going through this, know that you're not alone. There's tons of scary stuff out there on the internet about AVN, but I have yet to hear of anyone on a forum or in my real life who's actually experienced AVN. So here's my advice: Keep your chin up, ask for help with things (your friends *want* to be useful, so just tell them how to help you!), prioritize self-care, give yourself permission to be a couch potato, do all your physical therapy exercises even if they're boring, and be gentle and kind to yourself. :)

Hi Millie Brown.
I suffered a really bad break and dislocated talus back in March of 2014. I has been a rough road. Life is not the same for me. I had an additional surgery in February 2016 to lengthen my Achilles tendon and to clean out my joint of arthritis that has developed. Since my second surgery, my pain while walking is most definitely decreased. I have good days and bad. I haven't been able to run which is depressing, , but I try not to dwell on it. I have had multiple cortisone injections into my joint to help with my arthritis. That process is always worth it. I always feel great after that.
I did also struggle with depression during the time right after my injury. I came to the conclusion to not take antidepressants. Only because what I was going through was sad. It was depressing. I was supposed to be feeling those emotions. I told my doctors that because it was continually offered to me in the beginning. But thats me. I didn't think a pill would change the fact that I needed help washing, and someone to cook for me and the biggest blow for me was I had no income. No pill was going to change what I was depressed about. But again, thats me.
My email address is sarahwilson1@live.com if you need someone to talk to. Or if you have Facebook, look me up and you are welcome to message me there. (Sarah Wilson).
Just remind yourself that you will eventually heal. I don't know your circumstances, but my doctors went from saying that I may benefit from an amputation to saying I will never walk to I will never walk normally. ..all in a matter of weeks. So, i guess they were somewhat right i do not run anymore, but i can walk. Like i said, sometimes it hurts but at least i can do it. Chin up!!

Alexander, it makes a huge difference when you have a confidence in your surgeon. I'm glad yours is an expert. Old lady H, I will consider sending a personal message to some folk in this forum. ZD and Sarah, thank you for such a detailed sharing of your experiences, I can see you both understand how uncertain and worrying are first weeks after talus fracture. Sarah, I agree about antidepressants not fixing the original problem, although the reason I didn't take them after all is that they, according to some research, cause weak bones and osteoporosis.. or maybe I'm googling too much again..
Anyway, I've got CT scan result today (9 weeks post accident) and it confirmed undisplaced talus neck fracture, and its healing..phew. Hope it heals well.. I wish you all the best outcome.

After seeing much activity recently, I felt that an update was due. I initially injured my talus on 9/3/11. My ankle recovery peaked approximately 2-3 years after. I am able to climb rock, but ice is not enjoyable as the kicking motion paired with and abrupt collision with ice is irritating... The big culprit is arthritis. As my surgical team suggested, avoid impact activities (e.g. running, jumping, kicking) for best results. Thus, I am not too much into ice climbing and bouldering, but I am still improving and enjoying rock. I enjoy skiing (nordic/alpine), biking, hiking, and climbing. Learning to overcome fear of falling has been a rich experience over the past years since my initial injury. My advice: Keep your head up and dont spend too much time commiserating and ruminating. Keep your mind and body engaged while recovering as the alternative has no reward. Attitude is everything!

Millie Brown wrote:Alexander, it makes a huge difference when you have a confidence in your surgeon. I'm glad yours is an expert.

Millie -- I am glad to hear about the results of your CT. Congratulations! I only included the information about my surgeon since it seemed that earlier in the thread people were asking for and discussing that information.

Ben Smith -- Thank you for the update. I read the entire thread and followed your story rather closely, as you gave updates the most often and had a situation similar to mine. I also had the initial misdiagnosis: in fact, the ER discharged me with the "just a sprain" diagnosis even though I had fractured the talus completely and had major displacement of front half. I did have the surgery, however, and the surgeon did (what appears to me) an excellent job reconstructing my talus. I have high hopes that this minimizes my future discomfort due to arthritis, although I am certain I will still have to learn to deal with it.

I am sad to hear that you cannot boulder comfortably. I was really hoping, maybe by avoiding specific problems, down climbing often, and just dealing with some discomfort, that I would be able to boulder more or less normally. Do you experience issues when taking sport falls?

Thanks everyone for their contributions to the thread.

Hello, so here I am two years and 8 months after my initial break. I think the healing peaked at about the two year mark.

I've done numerous long distance backpacking trips with a big pack and no trouble. Running doesn't really cause too many problems but I suspect lots of distance running like marathon training might require some effort to manage. I'm not as particular about shoes anymore, converse are fine for many days of walking. I can do big approaches in my Evolv Cruzers again which I really missed for the first year and a half.

So to anyone who is in the middle of dealing with this... yeah it sucks, but I'd advise you to stay hopeful about the long term prognosis. It improves steadily for a long time so don't write yourself off too early.

Alexander,

Just to clarify, I choose not to boulder b/c of the inherent risk of re-injury r/t jumping off and falling off. It has nothing to do with the pain of bouldering.

Good luck-

Hi everyone. An update.

I have some photos now of the xrays of my ankle. My original post was on Feb 6th in this thread. For a summary, I had open reduction internal fixation of my complex talar body fracture in December. It was originally misdiagnosed by the ER as a sprain. I had an external fixator, and there was some concern about the alignment of the talus with respect to the tibia.

The first xray was taken 2 weeks after the accident, but it looks unsurprisingly similar to the one taken the day of in the ER in Chattanooga. Since they misdiagnosed it as a sprain, I can only imagine that they neither read the radiologist report nor did they look at the photos.

The second xray was taken a little over a week or two ago, approximately nine weeks post op. The healing is going well, my orthopedist can see the Hawkins sign which means there is no AVN. My understanding is that when the fracture is completely talar body, and avoids the neck, the risk of AVN is relatively low. You can still see the fracture if you look closely. As you can see, the positioning of the talus relative to the tibia looks mostly normal, but it is still slightly forward in the joint. I imagine that will just be how it is now due to cartilage damage or something. You can also see the hole they drilled for the external fixator.

As a side note, I opted to remove the ex fix in the clinic as opposed to the operating room. Removing the two pins from my shin did not hurt very badly. Removing the pin from my heel hurt worse than the injury itself, and was honestly somewhat surprising after the pins in the shin did not hurt.

I've been in PT, and I am now walking without a boot. I still limp, there is significant swelling, and there's still pain. I have no progressed further to adding weight or doing agility exercises with the ankle. For now, walking seems to be therapeutic enough. My therapist seems rather confident that I will make a nearly full recovery which is great to hear.

I have begun climbing again as well. I have been bouldering and sport climbing. I am not falling yet, but I am using it to its full capacity otherwise. It seems fine as long as I'm not trying to derive strength from the ankle itself or twist it overly much.

Anyways, there's lots of hope!

I've appreciated this thread in my recovery process, and thought I would share my story as well. I broke my talus about 5 weeks ago in a 50 ft ground fall while ice climbing. Freak accident due to not paying attention on top of a cliff and fell 50ft unroped. Managed to land as best I could hitting feet first and then onto my side. Ended up with a fractured talus and a minor scrape on my face.  Surgery about 5 days afterwards (7 screws) and a month on the couch was rough but I was super diligent about doing ankle flexing exercises and got an i-Walk which allowed me to walk around without crutches (get one! there like 140$ from walmart). Now after 5 weeks I'm partial weight bearing and almost have full range of motion back in my ankle. I got lucky and my x-rays shows the Hawkins sign that my talus is getting blood again. This is a scary injury but isn't a death sentence and if your young and healthy and diligent about doing your PT you can spring back from it. I'm sure I'll have some arthritis and plenty of PT ahead but everyday I'm seeing progress. Should be full weight bearing in two weeks and ready to start the spring season strong!

long overdue update:

6 month out from my surgery in March and my ankle it like 90% healed I've been doing plenty of climbing and I'm back leading at the same level as before my injury and bouldering in the gym. I've been doing plenty  of hiking to did a run up northeast ridge of pinnacle butt on Mt Washington, tagged the summit and was back to the car in 6 hours a couple weeks ago. I'm not as fast and my foot definitely aches more, climbing actually feels better than walking, especially smearing. I havent tried any long distance running but standing on it for long periods of time for work is probably what makes it hurt the most and the more I move it the better it feels. Didn't go to an actually PT person but I'm happy with my progress. 

Stay strong in your recovery people!

huh. I'll weigh in here since I saw someone post about AVN and how they never met anyone that actually happened to. I had a type IV, displaced, dislocated talar neck fracture with a 90% change of developing AVN, and I did. Not only did I develop AVN, but it got progressively worse as more time went on. This resulted in 20+ salvage procedures and 6 YEARS on crutches. Talar fractures truly are the worst. I finally had a distraction athrodiastisis done by the fantastic surgeons at the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC (they only do orthopedics) after 11 orthopedic surgeons recommended a combination of either fusion or amputation. 

I never thought a dumb broken leg would take so long to heal, with so many surgeries. Yeah, I sat around feeling pretty sorry for myself for a good 2 years of the 6 I spent on crutches, but am back to climbing. After such a long hiatus, I found that all my muscle tone turned to jelly; all the beer I drank to keep myself from slitting my wrists didn't help either. I spent an entire year top roping because I was WAY TOO SCARED to lead, but I've been back on the sharp end for about 5 years now. Some days I still get scared, and my ankle is no where near normal -- I can't really dyno off my right leg because I lost so much muscle and I have about 15% of normal ROM. I also always thought I'd never crack climb since I have a subtalar fusion, but it's surprising how your body can adapt. I do a lot of smearing my right foot and jamming my left. It's not ideal, but I manage to make my way up most routes. I'm climbing in the 11+ trad/12+ sport range which I'm pretty happy about considering I totally destroyed my leg, and was told my multiple specialists that I'd never walk again. It's true -- I totally limp and if you ever see someone at the crag parked in the handicapped spot and roll your eyes, that's me. 

Anyway, everyone's recovery is different, but I haven't met many people who had it quite as bad as I did and I'm still climbing. 

doliver Oliver wrote:

I've appreciated this thread in my recovery process, and thought I would share my story as well. I broke my talus about 5 weeks ago in a 50 ft ground fall while ice climbing. Freak accident due to not paying attention on top of a cliff and fell 50ft unroped. Managed to land as best I could hitting feet first and then onto my side. Ended up with a fractured talus and a minor scrape on my face.  Surgery about 5 days afterwards (7 screws) and a month on the couch was rough but I was super diligent about doing ankle flexing exercises and got an i-Walk which allowed me to walk around without crutches (get one! there like 140$ from walmart). Now after 5 weeks I'm partial weight bearing and almost have full range of motion back in my ankle. I got lucky and my x-rays shows the Hawkins sign that my talus is getting blood again. This is a scary injury but isn't a death sentence and if your young and healthy and diligent about doing your PT you can spring back from it. I'm sure I'll have some arthritis and plenty of PT ahead but everyday I'm seeing progress. Should be full weight bearing in two weeks and ready to start the spring season strong!

No ex-fix and immediately able to do mobility exercises, nice! Your recovery is exceptionally speedy. Congrats on your Hawkins sign, too.

A little more update for me:
I'm now almost 4 months out from surgery and probably at about 75% range of motion, but lots more strength. I've been climbing sport and bouldering in the gym (I am careful and I haven't landed on my injured foot), but I am back to climbing at about the same grade as I was before and I didn't notice my foot the last time I climbed. There are some very contorted heel hooking type moves that I can't do (they require more range than I have), but otherwise my foot climbs like normal. PT is essential! Seriously, don't skimp on the PT. All in all, everything looks really positive! Off to the Red this weekend!

It's so helpful to hear everyone's experiences. Fractured my talus in May after taking a 15-ish-ft lead fall and jamming my heel on a ledge, a comminuted mildly displaced talar dome fracture. Initially misdiagnosed as a sprain, MRI looking for torn ligaments picked up the fracture a week later. ORIF and debridement of the sub-talar joint one month post injury, weight bearing in a boot 4 weeks post-surgery. I'm back to most activities and can start running next week. As I understand, my recovery has been quick. So far no indication of AVN-fingers crossed. Range of motion is a bit limited but improving quickly. The most helpful thing for me so far has been staying active during recovery, working hard with a trainer on modified upper body and core workouts while I was still non-weight bearing. Once I was weight bearing I also started climbing one-footed in the gym with the boot on, belayed tightly on routes where big swings or falls were unlikely. With the exception of the injured leg which lost a ton of muscle, my body is stronger than before because of the workouts. Likely many challenges are ahead to get back to running strong, but looking forward to working at it. Leading will be a big mental hurdle. Has anyone gotten back to long distance running and how long did it take you?

WOW! Thank you all for posting and this website blog....After reading many , not all of the stories, I feel that I could and will heal so I can return to somewhat "normal" living.

I fell from a ladder 10ft and landed perfectly to shatter my left talas. I went eminently to the hospital and they took x-rays and transferred me to Milwaukee's highest trauma level hospital. I had surgery the next morning and a ex-fix device put on a week later.

I was told and saw via x-ray that I broke my talas in four pieces. The ortho. foot surgeon also (highly recommended and has got a lot great reviews) stated that he would have liked to put screws in however the bones are in to small of pieces to attach any screw. He stated that I seemed very positive and very healthy and so I will have to heal by allowing the bones to come together as best as they can. In the mean time he placed a ex-fix device on the leg/foot for 3 months! I'm currently on the last month, 3 weeks to go. last x -ray looked very good and the surgeon who keeps positives at a minimum seemed very happy with the progress. 

For the majority of my life I've always remained positive. I do not drink or smoke which helps the healing and eat quiet well. I've been taking a lot of supplements such as protein, calcium and collagen peptides as well as my vitamins with upping vitamin D and K.  In the mean time really trying to stay positive but I have moments mostly at night when really bad negative thoughts encompass me. I experiencing a lot of weird nerve pain, thigh and knee area. The doc won't comment one way or another on this....

Again thanks all of you and wish all of you healing!

Hi everyone, I was in a head on Collision in 2004 They first thought that my ankle might be fractured, so for the First year I saw a Podiatrist and he did a small surgery to releave some pressure and pain, It helped for a VERY SHORT TIME, Then I was told by my primary Dr that needed much more, so they did an MRI and immediately sent me to see a Ankle / foot surgeon, In two minutes he knew exactly what I needed, and told me I needed to have my ankle fused. I was in so much pain a year after my accident, He had to put in screws, plates, and I was in a Cast for 19 WEEKS non weight bearing cast, and then a BOOT for 19 weeks and then LOTS of REHAB afterwards, and pool therapy to get circulation back into my foot and ankle,  TOday is 2017 and the pain has returned and my skin on my foot and ankle look like I have a Severe Burn, learned today I have what is called Staining, The iron in my blood has stained my skin from inside out, They told me I need to wear 24/7 COMPRESSION socks, Brace and HEAT HEAT HEAT when I can do it with either Heating pad or water bottle as much as I can stand, ARTHRITIS has formed around the screws and plates, and my ankle is weak, and basically just hurts alot, Dr told me I #1. Try not to feel sorry for myself , get up and do as much as I can tolerate, Keep it braced up, Wear the socks and heat, Travel and do as much as I can, ( PS ) in a few weeks I also have to have knee replacement on right knee this also was due to that Car accident had in 2004 This started the whole thing,   So if anyone out there is having Ankle problems PLEASE DO NOT put it off get it checked,  Back track what started this all off was a head on collison  a kid on a cell phone not paying attention ran a stop and hit me head on, MY TALUS was shattered from me slamming on the brake peddle seeing his car coming at me trying to stop my car in time, WITH NO LUCK and then my leg went pop and loud noise ( MAYBE JUST TO ME ) but instant severe pain, 

Take care and get the help YOU NEED* xoxo

Going to report my talus fracture here since this thread seemed to be the one place where the information I was looking for could be found (getting back to climbing and activity ASAP). On August 28th 2019 I broke my talus in a lead climbing accident indoors (I know). I accidentally skipped a clip and fell 2 clips past where my last clip was. I was maybe 6 clips up so my belayer did as good of a job as she could at not letting me deck given the seconds we had to react. Instead I hit the wall pretty hard foot first at an angle. Immediately lowered and assessed as I knew my foot was fucked. At first was hoping it was just a bad sprain, someone from the gym taped me up and I whimpered home. That night my ankle swelled up to a balloon, followed by my entire foot in the coming days.

I got xrays the next day and 2 weeks after because my doctor could not see a fracture, we thought it was just a horrible sprain. Only after an MRI and CT scan did we figure out I had royally fucked myself up.

fractured pretty clean through my talus but it was non displaced. Possible small fracture in my heel but hard to tell. Obvious ligament damage. The orthopedist said that if he had seen this day 1 he would've recommended surgery, but the fact that it wasn't displaced and that it looked like it was starting to heel made him decide against it. We would just see where I was in 8 weeks. He warned me that talus fractures are nasty and there was a small chance I could suffer from AVN and experience some bone loss. I was put in a cast for 6 weeks and then a boot for 2 weeks after with a strict no weightbearing order. Hobbled around on crutches and a knee scooter which was helpful while teaching. That was an extremely difficult two months especially because it occurred in prime climbing season and I was climbing something like 5 days a week before. Had a tremendous amount of help from friends, and I even climbed one footed after 6 weeks on top rope.
In December everything looked like it was heeling (hehe) very well, much to my surprise given the grim stories out here on the internet. I started to put weight on the foot only in my boot. I think I hobbled around on the boot for 3 weeks or so, walking further and further every day. I'll say one thing about this injury, I was tremendously motivated which I think accelerated my recovery. Every day I was pushing through discomfort, not pain because pain usually means something bad is happening. But it wasn't comfortable and I checked in with my doctor whenever I could that what I was doing was ok.

In January, 4 months after the injury I started walking on my barefoot. I started doing PT 2 times a week and almost immediately started trying to climb and lead again. I took it slowly and never pushed myself too hard if I didn't think my foot could handle it. Fortunately it could. I wore a velcro ankle brace pretty much all the time except for when I was sleeping. It provided a lot of support and always made me feel like I could trust my ankle and foot on impacts. Here's a pic of my setup. 
Solutions never felt so tight before. I took PT extremely serious and did my exercises every day and told my PTs to push me while I was there. At the same time I started slowly taking lead falls and bouldering a bit, always watching my foot carefuly but pushing myself as much as felt safe. My first couple lead falls were scary to say the least but it turns out they were fine, just like before I hurt myself. By february I was climbing 4/5 days a week again and sent my first 12a in the gym. Since then I'm climbing harder and better than I was even before the injury. If you have a good base of climbing fitness then even 4 months of not climbing or walking won't stop you. Here's a little pic showing the extent of my recovery.



So to everyone going through this stay strong/positive/and motivated. My orthopedist told me I've had one of the most tremendous recoveries he's every seen and it was because of my motivation. 4 months seems like a long time but now I couldn't care less. I'm running, doing hour long approaches to ice climb through snow, sport climbing better than I was before. Of course my ankle and foot still feel a little funny, and I probably will always be able to tell which foot I blew up, but once I'm moving I pretty much forget it happened.

Hi again! It’s been a few years (!!) since I last updated this thread, so I figured I’d post a follow-up. (My last post was in 2017 and under the name ZD.) To recap, I had nine screws, two plates, and a cadaver bone transplant after a 12’ fall at an indoor bouldering gym in 2016 (four years ago).

I’m happy to report that starting at about the year mark and continuing to the present, I’ve had no pain, no limp, no sign of AVN, and full functionality of my ankle. I can even run with a normal gait and no pain! (My surgeon doesn’t recommend it, so it’s not part of my routine, but I can if needed.)

My range of motion is a bit limited compared to my other ankle (especially inversion/eversion), so I definitely have some stiffness, but it doesn’t limit any of my activities. The only exception is that I can’t do a full malasana squat in yoga (i.e., Asian squat); I either have to lift my heels up, or roll up a blanket or mat under my heels. But this is super minor.

I think I had unusually good outcomes — it sounds like not that many people can run comfortably. I definitely feel like I lucked out. I was prepared for the worst. Even if my story is *best case* scenario, I hope it gives you some hope that you’ll get through it! It’s a miserable, demoralizing injury, and I really feel for anyone going through it now. Keep doing your PT homework, take the recovery realllllly slowly and cautiously, and ask for support from your community. They want to be useful, so tell them how to help you.

Here are the names of my care team — I highly recommend all of them:

Utku Kandemir, orthopedic surgeon at UCSF and San Francisco General 

Bryce Burton, physical therapist, now in Boulder I think.

Brian Rizzo, chiropractor who specializes in active release technique, SF

Looks like this thread has been dead for a while. I’ll start her back up. I am an avid surfer and went down to Pascuales mexico for some tube time. A wave landed on my back and I felt it immediately. Emergency in Mexico said it’s a sprain and gave me a soft cast. Which I had to remove the next day because the swelling was becoming so bad it was hurting pretty bad.
Got back to the states went to the doc. Another X-ray.  Another it’s sprained.  Try to do range of motion exercises and try to walk on it the best you can.  Come back in three weeks if it isn’t better.  I know my body pretty well as I hurt myself regularly and knew something was wrong.  Went to another doc and got an mri ordered for 8 weeks out.   Seems like everything medical has been fucked since covid….   Didn’t want to wait 8 weeks so saw another specialist.  For another X-ray.  They still see nothing.  Order an mri from there facility and I was finally able to get an mri four weeks out from the date of the injury.  Saw the doc and he hit me all sorts of things and words that I hadn’t heard before.  Told me I could die….   I left his office in a little bit of shock.  All I really took in is that my talus is in fifty pieces.  But somehow still somewhat together.  He told me that weight bearing would be tho e absolute worst thing as the bone is extremely soft at this point and can change shape.  That was this last Friday.  Today is Sunday and I have done enough internet searches to scare the shit out of myself.  I think the death he was mentioning was the avn and related possibility of infection?  I’m not even sure to be honest.  Tommorrow is Monday and my newfound knowledge of how serious this can be has prompted me to go back tommorrow and ask more questions.

And just to reiterate what everyone here has said.  I’m not even a climber but made an account just to read and participate in this thread.  I am incredibly grateful to be able to read all of your experiences and not feel so alone.  I know it might not be life threatening but it’s definitely life shattering to tell and athlete that he may not be able to be an athlete anymore.  I literally cried today thinking about the fact that I may never surf again.  Telling myself that my body is a beast and it’s sending everything it can to ankle to heal it up.  Regardless of whether or not I have as successful a recovery as some of you, it has given me some relief to not feel so alone. All my friends I tell I broke my ankle assume it’s like every other bone and I’ll be as good as new in six weeks.  I can tell it’s going to be a lot longer than that, just hoping I’ll be able to walk and surf again sometime in the future.  Thanks again to everyone that has posted here

Cory Beat wrote:

I can tell it’s going to be a lot longer than that, just hoping I’ll be able to walk and surf again sometime in the future.  Thanks again to everyone that has posted here

Good luck mate.

I grew up surfing and in a surfing family, although nothing like that monster you've caught in the photo.

They'll probably tell you that swimming is good recovery for you at least. Plenty of ways to connect to the ocean if you can't manage to stand up on a shortboard, snorkelling and spearfishing, bodysurfing, all the alt board stuff longboards and bodyboards, sea kayaking...I know it will all be a bit weak sauce after being an accomplished big wave surfer. Maybe check out spearfishing, it was a big second passion for a lot of guys on a flat day.

You can do some amazing camping trips in a sea kayak as well, it's empowering to paddle a long way up or down the coast for days under your own power.

Don’t lose hope, Cory. I was misdiagnosed after falling off a ladder - broke the Tibia and Fibula, but they didn’t see the broken Talus on the X-Rays, which I’m told is common…it’s hard to see. About 6 weeks in, the final set of X-rays revealed the Talus was in 4 pieces and that Necrosis might have started (it had). They told me all they could do was fuse my ankle. I cried for 2 days then rallied and made an appt at the Foot and Ankle Clinic at Mass General in Boston (I live in Maine.) They saw me within 3 days when I told them how long ago the fall occurred. Dr Greg Waryasz operated a few days later. Grafted the bone to stop the necrosis, did some cartilage repair and put the Talus back together with 2 plates, 7 screws and 2 pins. It’s almost 4 years and I have 90 to 95% functioning, and getting hardware out this fall.
Find yourself a good foot and ankle surgeon - tell them what’s happening. When you mention necrosis and shattered Talus, the right surgeon will get you in for a consult immediately, and should do the surgery immediately. If they can’t easily repair the Talus thru ORIF surgery,  Dr Waryasz said they’re were other surgical procedures. options. Fortunately the surgery was successful. Thinking of you! Cathy