Monday, December 20, 2010

Will he ever catch a break?

I wish that I had a magic wand that would fix my dad's health forever. But that is all it is...wishful thinking. He had surgery before Thanksgiving (11/17) to remove the toes on his left foot. His donation to diabetes he said. We hoped for an easy surgery and stress free recovery. Sadly, this did not happen. On Monday 11/22 I got a phone call while out with friends that his inscision had burst open and he was taken to the ER. I rushed over to pick up mom and we went to the hospital they took him to. The ER doctors there did not close him up, said he'd have to see his surgeon at Parkland. So they got the bleeding to stop and sent him home. The next day (11/23) we went into the surgeons office and he found the problem. A tiny artery had un-carterized (sp?) itself and was bleeding inside his foot. The build up of pressure caused the inscision to burst. He sewed it closed, packed his foot, rewrapped it & sent him home. The surgeon made a house call on Thanksgiving Day to redress the foot and again the following Sunday (11/28). Dad had a follow up visit on 11/29 with the wound care clinic and the surgeon came down to check it again. Some of the tissue had died so it had to be removed. Next appointment was 12/1 and the surgeon said dad needed another surgery to take a little more of his foot in order to close it up. It was scheduled for 12/8. That visit to the hospital was all screwed up. He checked in on Tuesday the 7th and stayed overnight. He didn't go into surgery on the 8th until after 10pm...that is over 24 hours with no food or anything to drink! I understand emergencies come up, so reschedule his surgery for the following day so the man can eat! Suregery went ok as far as we knew. Friday the 10th he was to go back into surgery to close the foot up. This didn't happen until Saturday the 11th. He finally got to come home on Dec. 14th, cast & all. He was sent home with a PIC line and has to do 6 weeks of IV antibiotics 3 times a day because there is infection in the bone. He had a cast on his foot/leg for 2 weeks after being home. Follow up visit #1 revealed the foot has reopened. The surgeon has decided to let it heal from the inside out. Follow up visit #2 the cast came off. Follow up visit #3, which was yesterday, totally wiped him out. The surgeon poked & prodded (sp?) in his foot and had it bleeding pretty bad. A health care person is set to come by 3 times a week to hook up some sort of pump to his open foot to help drain it and possibly help it heal. I am so upset for my dad. He doesn't deserve all this. He is a good man. I wish there was something I could do, but there isn't. And that completely kills me.

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