Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration. However, taking into account the emergency room visit in Tahoe, the surgery at UCSF, and the subsequent visits to the doctor, my new wrist cost me, or my insurance I should say, about $20,000.The image shown here shows the hardware within my wrist. A t-shaped 4.5" steel plate that has a total of nine screws attaching it to my bone. At the top, you can see the four screws that attach the plate to the distal area of the radius. The plate then bridges my triangle-shaped fracture and has a total of five screws attaching it to the shaft of the radius (the dark circles going down the shaft). The five screws aren't very visible from this angle, but you get the general picture. Bottom line, I broke this bone in the worst way possible! Oh, and it's a gnarly scar too--it's about 4.5" long--the same length as the plate.
The fracture has yet to completely heal and is still very visible on this Fluoroscan image that was taken on Thursday afternoon. As the fracture heals the triangle-shaped "fracture" lines on the bone will disappear. For now, I am wearing a cast that will come off on April 7th and then I'll wear a removable Velcro splint after that for a while until I regain my strength. Piece of cake, right?
That's pretty cool, Wolverine. Try not to set off any airport metal detectors.