Cartiledge damage to ankle joint.

I took a big fall from about 3m height while kitesurfing and landed on my board really hard. I was unable to walk for a couple of weeks and have had pain in the ankle ever since. Also the movement range of the foot was strongly reduced (ie I could not bend the ankle so much). A year after the accident, I still had limited movement and pain, so I went to a speciallist who could see from X-Rays that I had a small growth on the front of the ankle (similar to “footballers ankle??”. He decided to operate the growth away. When he did the operation he found that a about 1cm square area of the carteledge on the Tibia was not attached to the bone and was just hanging there, not really attached. He removed the carteledge and drilled a number of small holes in the tibia to promote new cell growth which should form a sort of carteledge.

But according to the doctor, my ankle will never be really strong again. I have no real pain in the ankle except when I try to bend it more than it will allow. I still have a limited motion.

My question is if other people have experienced something similar and what where their experiences?

Best regards,

Marc