8/15/06 Tuesday 23 Days Post Accident

            Today is the long awaited day to have your ankle repaired.  Dr. Tressler has called me from the OR suite to let me know what he is actually going to do today.  When he took off your splint to the left foot the lateral (outside) aspect of your ankle/heel did not look good (the outside skin tissue was not conducive to opening and exposing bone to, at this time).  Dr. Tressler believes this was caused from pressure on the side of our foot.  He is going ahead and work on the ankle, try and locate the taler body and pin your ankle, then reposition the tibia somewhat.  He also talked about putting a pin in your calcaneous (heel) to help take some of the pressure off of your lateral aspect of the foot to aid in healing that area for future surgery.  I am not sure when your mouth is going to be re-wired as Dr. Tressler was not going to be able to give the Oral/Maxillary surgeons his OR suite when he is done with you as he has two other long cases following you.

            LAMP – Psalm 119:105

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

We have thought of other acronyms for LAMP besides Look At Me Please, Lord Acknowledge My Path, and Lord Answer My Prayers.

                        Dr. Tressler just came out to speak to us at 7:15 pm to give us the summary of your surgery.  He started off saying he could not have been more pleased with the outcome and how the foot looks.  He said he ended up repairing both the ankle and the heel.  The area of the L lateral heel that he thought was pressure was definitely pressure—the heel bone was poking out.  He cleaned the area and the heel bone and went ahead and repaired it.  He also said your surgery was the most difficult case he has done thus far.

            The ankle had to be fused because he could not locate the bony piece he thought might have been imbedded in your foot.  He rebuilt your ankle bone and your heel bone and placed a plate to stabilize the ankle so it won’t collapse.

            He then repaired your L fibula as it was externally rotated which once put back in place allowed your foot to sit right and the tibia did to need to be repositioned.

            Dr. Tressler then called in Dr. Hagan, who is the Chief of Plastics, to take a look at the wound on your heel from where the tibia came through.  Dr. Hagan debrided (cleaned) the wound down to fresh, good blood flow, tissue and placed a wound vac in your heel.  The wound vac will keep the wound free of infection and allow healing from the inside out.  Then the plan is to do a “reverse skin flap” over the wound to close the wound completely.  He will take some skin tissue from the mid aspect of your left sole and lay it over the wound to cover the wound.

            There is no other surgery needed on your ankle or heel, barring no complications, except for the flap.  The flap could take pace in a coupe of weeks to months, we are not sure.  Dr. Tressler did say that you had told him you could feel the bottom of your foot a couple of times.  He also said your screw in your right leg could be seen under your skin as you had lost enough weight.  He said, “It’s nothing a number of cheeseburgers couldn’t fix.”  Evidently you lost approximately 500 cc of blood from your foot.  Dr. Tressler said he never had so much blood come from a foot, usually 100 cc, but not 500 cc.  He went ahead and transfused you with a unit of blood, not so much because you needed it but because it would give you good oxygenation.

            Dr. Tressler asked what color of car you drove, wanted to know if it was blue.  We told him you had a gray jeep, and asked why he wanted to know.  He said he found a blue paint chip in your foot.

            Your surgery lasted a total of 10 hours.

8/15/06 Tuesday’s Day End Report

Mark 11:24 “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

            We thank God for answered prayers.  You came through the surgery beautifully!  You arrived in your room at approximately 8:30pm.  You were awake, alert, NOT on the ventilator, and complaining of pain.  Your right leg had the splint completely off and the leg looked great.  You rose up to look at your leg.

            You had the wrist restraints back on because our nurse told us you pulled your trach out last night.  She found you sitting in bed holding your trach in your hand.  You never dropped your oxygen saturation which is good but they paced a new one in last night.

            I am so excited you are awake, alert, breathing on our own, and remembering what had been done.

            You were asking for something to drink but you could not have anything.  I asked the nurse if you could maybe have some ice ships or suck on a wet washcloth.  The nurse gave you a couple of oral swabs that were wet for you to suck on.  Before we left the nurse informed us you were scheduled for OR tomorrow to get your mouth re-wired.  I am glad that is getting done so there won’t be anymore surgery after the mouth for a while.

            I pray that all healing will be done without complication of infection and the healing is done quickly. 

            This day has been full of answered prayer—Thanks be to God!  AMEN.