Nice, I think I was in my early teens when we left as well. I’m sure my dad has a box of old photos in it somewhere, but his last few years of service kinda soured any fond memories he had left of his time in the Air Force. Though I think that’s kinda common place for senior NCO, I haven’t met too many dudes above Master Sargent who I could claim were jolly guys.

No worries, same here. We were there from 96-00, there’s a good chance we’ve run into each other before! There’s an even better chance that our fathers worked together in some capacity, it was a relatively tiny base and the U2 program was pretty small.

I think Beale was one of my favorite bases I’ve ever lived on, I used to go hiking in the foot hills basically everyday during summer. I feel like it was small and remote enough where you could get into a lot of shit as a kid without ever really getting in any trouble.

By chance did you guys ever go to one of the Christmas parties in the old skunk works building?

Supposedly it’s supposed to be optionally manned.

Oh nice, were you guys stationed out at Beale AFB?

I mean it flew in operations up until 1990 and its last actual flight was in 1999.

We can’t really build stuff like that anymore. The people who designed it had an intuitive grasp for aeronautics. You can’t teach intuition to a computer.

I mean that’s just a silly claim, the HTV-2 drone has literally gone mach 20, which is nearly 10 times faster than the SR71. Plus the SR72 project is currently in development with aims to be nearly twice as fast as the SR71.

I mean, it’s not that old of an airframe. I’m only middle aged and I saw the last time it flew in 1991. My dad just retired from the FAA a couple years ago and when he was in the military he maintained the flight suits for the SR71 and U2 programs.

The original engineers may have passed, but the crew and engineers responsible for the huge amount of maintenance for the airframe are still around and probably have more functional knowledge about the airframe than the designers.

Edit: 1999 not 1991.

15 years experience in a leadership position for something so specific seems like a hard ask. I feel like that’s just asking for a person in their 50s who probably won’t really understand the technological environment they’ll be dealing with.

You’d probably notice it more if you were doing sports with a lot of lateral movements, pivoting, and changing direction. Not so much with something like cycling. You might notice over time it if you were doing something like marathons as it does help absorb some ground force reaction on heel strike.

Yeah, it’s the only weight bearing compound triplanar joint in the body. So it’s a lot more complex than something like the ball and socket joint of your hip. That’s why ankle and foot surgeries face a lot more complications and need for revisions compared to most other orthopedic operations.

You’d probably eventually notice just after a long time if you are fairly active, even a loss of rom of a couple degrees adds up over time. You would probably notice a lot faster if you were an athlete, just because the issues would compound faster and you’re more connected to your body.

That’s not really how consent works, at least not in the US. You typically give consent for the operation, not for every individual procedure that’s done in the operation. A lot of the times you don’t really know what’s going to be needed to be done until you have the patient opened up, so the provider has a lot of leeway to operate as they see fit.

How quickly can it absorb?

Depends on the individual and what bone we are talking about. Though that’s quite a lot of bone to dissipate, so my guess would be that it’s a fairly old injury.

The radius moves a lot more than the fibula, which makes sense considering the need for moderate rigidity for weight bearing. The fibula only moves around a degree in internal and external rotation and less than a degree in the sagital tilting.

If you think about the rom in the ankle compared to the wrist it makes a bit more sense.

It’s a possibility, but I doubt it considering the profile pic seems to be of a relatively young patient. Plus, I’m not seeing anywhere on the tibia where a graft would be necessary, of course it could have been utilized elsewhere.

It would also be an odd place to harvest from, usually you would shoot for an area a little more distal to the attachment point of the extensor hallucis longus.

Aim your toes forward in the normal anatomical position; now rotate your entire foot to the left or right. That’s your fibula working. Without it, very limited rotation; but otherwise you can still walk and function mostly normally, just a bit impaired

Eh… I do specialize in orthopedics and rehabilitation. You can still do all these things without a fully functional fibula, just to a reduced degree. The fibula only contributes to a few degrees of range of motion in the lower limb, we are talking about millimeters. It can be noticeable given enough time or a high enough level of vigorous activity. Most people would live a fairly active lifestyle without noticing this kind of damage to the fibula.

Supply issues aren’t really an issue, orthopedic operations like this aren’t exactly emergent care. If you have time to procure a tibial nail there isn’t a reason you wouldn’t be able to get a fibular nail at the same time.

As far as cost, the same logic applies. When an orthopedist is coming up with a treatment plan you submit the treatment plan that would best lead to the overall best outcome for the patient, you don’t really formulate based on the most economic outcome.

The insurance company isn’t going to deny a fibular nail, but approve a tibial one. If they are going to go out of pocket, the cost of the fibular nail would be negligible when compared to the overall cost of the operation. The most expensive aspect of an orthopedic moderation is the operating room and the anesthesia, not the additional hardware or operating time.

Doesn’t really look like it’s been taken out for a graft, at least not anytime recently. My bet would be he acquired a atrophic nonunion fracture the same time he broke his tibia. The rounded edges of the bone look more like they’ve been subject to resorption instead of being excised.

Honestly not that rare for fibular fractures, though the segment missing is fairly large. So it’s probably a fairly old injury.

Probably just an atrophic nonunion fracture. If it was that damaged and you were already doing a tibial nail, there wouldn’t really be a reason not to do a fibular nail at the same time.

The fibula has fairly poor blood flow compared to the tibia, it’s not really that rare for the fracture to never callus and bridge back together. If that happens a lot of the times the bone will be subject to resorption.

Relatively little for most people. It helps with ankle stabilization, but lots of people break their fibula and don’t even notice. If you’re an athlete who does a lot of lateral motion, it’s fairly important.

More than likely just an atrophic nonunion fracture of the fibula. The tibia and fibula were probably broken at the same time, if the fibular fracture looked like it didn’t need to be set they probably didn’t even bother putting hardware in.

You don’t really need to have any serious health issues for this. Sometimes with bones that aren’t weight bearing it’s just bad luck, sometimes it’s because you’re smoking a little too much.

Yeap, an unfortunate side effect of “Obamacare” mandating corporations provide coverage for full time employees was everyone cutting hours back to make sure no one was full time. Labour laws here are a joke.