@jelliott31 Now I understand. It makes sense. If your bones were in so many pieces, it was probably very difficult to piece them together in a way that would allow them to heal correctly. There is also the aspect of proper blood flow to keep the tissue alive and there needed to be some support to keep the blood vessels in a normal arrangement. My experience isn't the same as yours, but is a bad ankle fracture. My cousin is a radiologist and when I showed him my x-ray, he said I was lucky I could walk at all. I had puzzle piece fractured shapes on the front of my tibia but not fractured all the way through, and both of the "knobs" of the ankle were broken off. (the inside one is part of the tibia, and the outside one is the fibula). There was enough un-fractured bone to attach plates to secure the broken places.

I hope you will be able to have the rod removed some day if your leg is strong enough. It sounds like the accident was very serious.