Needing some rest

The last few days have proved to be pretty exhausting for Joe. He did not rest well last night or at all so far to day. He has only closed his eyes for minutes at a time and really needs to be getting hours of sleep, if he can. They are going to try some alternatives to Morphine as they are not sure this is the best pain med. for him. They will also try some other things to help him rest.

Todd (who is at the hospital this week w/Robb and mom) said the day after the jaw-wiring surgery the swelling had gone down and he looked pretty good. He is able to talk again with this new trach by putting his finger over a hole in the tube, so he is able to communicate his needs to the nurses and our family.

The room he is in now is good because he has nurses keeping a closer watch on him, but there are also three other patients in this room. It is not as quiet or peaceful as the private room he had down the hall. This along with the pain of the most recent surgery no doubt, have all been contributing to his lack of rest.

So for now, let's hope that all of his injuries have been discovered and that he has a very restful next couple of days. Please count as many sheep as you can for my dad and send lots of zzzzzzzzzz's his way so that he can begin to rebuild some strength again. Keep all of the prayers, well wishes and strength coming Joe's way. Thanks for all of it!

Stacy (number 4)

Quick update

Hi everyone. It has been a busy few days with some ups and some downs. Some new ex-rays showed that my dad has a fractured right clavicle. Also, after weeks of him telling us he was having pain in his teeth and that he was sure it was an injury stemming from the accident, we finally got an answer. His jaw is fractured and he has been back to surgery to wire it shut and the trach has been put back in. The feeding tube has obviously been put back in as well. The doctors have been keeping a close eye on his infection and keeping it as clean as possible. The doctors are also looking into possible nerve damage b/c he is having some numbness and tingling in some of his fingers. He is still on a trauma unit but has moved to a room where he is having more care. He was in the O.R. a lot this week and is pretty worn out but doing remarkably well for "an old guy".
My mom has a lot more detail for all of you but she has not left my dad's room b/c she does not want to miss any of the doctors that may want to slip in and out. We hope my dad will have a restful weekend (no surgeries planned) and get some nourishment (through the feeding tube).
Please keep your positive thoughts coming.

Dana

DAY 28 - WEDNESDAY NIGHT

Well, Joe has dozed off and we are awaiting another go-around with the CPM machine at 11:00 P.M. Two hours on and two hours off for 24 hours a day can tire a guy out. Besides, the machine weighs a ton and Joe can't move his own legs, so it takes a few people to get the thing on and off. He seems to be tolerating it just fine on the left leg and the right leg will re-join the rehab on its own CPM machine when the infection is under better control. Yes, we have now added Infectious Diseases to the other Teams that are attending Joe. They joined us yesterday and have become part of our happy little dysfunctional family - Trauma, Orthopedics, Plastics and Infectious Diseases. What's not to love there?
Monday was pretty exhausting as the ortho residents finally realized that the femur incision did not look good. We had been watching the dressing over the incision all weekend with great concern. So Joe was shipped off to surgery on monday to clean and debride the wound. Another 2 liters of infected material, bone chips and muscle fragments were removed and the whole area cleaned. A large pressure dressing was applied and was to stay in place until surgery the next day. Bright and early the next day, Infectious Diseases arrived. They already knew that there was a Staph infection involved and were still examining the material to see if there were any other bacteria involved. As they spoke to us about hoping to save the life and hopefully, the limb, we knew that we were back to our first goal - survival. It was a difficult and frightening time, but we managed to get a grip and prepare for Joe's scheduled surgery for that day... the removal of the external fixator from the left tibia and the bone repair and setting. Now included in this day's surgery was another washing out and debridement of the femur wound and the placement of a nice, large would Vac packed from deep inside to the outside. The plan is to take him to surgery every 48 hours to do the same thing until they feel the infection is under some kind of control. Hopefully, they will be able to keep it away from the bone and give the rod a chance to provide stability until the bone can begin to heal. Dr. S. would really like all the metal out of the body, but that is just not possible right now, so they have to work with what they have. Joe was scheduled to be 4th in line for surgery that day and expected to go about 3:00 or 4:00, and true to hospital form, it was 8:00 when he went. We have learned that hospital schedule change in the blink of an eye, but we have great faith in Dr. L. and he has done an excellent job so far. He has said that as long as Joe can wiggle his toes, he'll keep working on the problems that develop. It helped Joe to be confident about the outcome of the surgery and that gives us some peace of mind. Thank you again for all your thoughts and prayers. Cindi

The "wound vac surgery"

We just spoke with the orthopedic surgeon who is done with his part of the surgery. They have done everything they wanted to do...and then some. They started off by going into the left leg and putting a plate and nine screws in along with a bone graft to help fuse the gap in the break. They did a muscle flap and a skin graft to cover that part of the leg and covered it with a wound vac. This means that the ex-fix (or the huge metal bars that were holding his leg in place on the outside of his leg) have been taken off! My dad will be thrilled when he wakes up from surgery.
They then moved onto the right leg which is the one with the infection. Dr. L said that it looked pretty clean when they took the bandage off and they just "tidied up in there". They are also putting a wound vac on the site of the incision which is now open again. We like the wound vacs, as they keep the wound covered and somewhat protected from contamination. Dr. L said they will probably be taking my dad back to surgery in 48 hours to clean out the infected area again and will continue to do this regularly until they feel like the infection is gone.
So now Joe has a total of 3 wound vacs on his body (the one still remains on his lower right leg as well), no external hardware and quite a bit of internal hardware.
We are waiting to see him after his surgery and are hoping he sleeps well tonight!

Side note: We know it is difficult for many people to post comments on this blog. This is an attempt to walk you through it.
1.Click on the title of the post for the day (ex. the wound vac surgery).
2.Once you are in you should be able to view the other comments that have been posted.
3.Scroll to the bottom of that screen and there should be an option to "post comment".
4.Click on that and if you do no have a google account you can just post as an annonymous user. Hope that helps.

Keep the prayers and positive thoughts coming for this nasty infection to rid itself from my dad's body. Thank you, thank you.

bump in the road

Hi everyone. The infection that my dad developed in his right leg is indeed a staph infection. He is recieving blood right now to prepare him for surgery. The doctors will address the infection again this afternoon in surgery. None of the doctors are sure if they will continue with the intended surgery on the left leg. An external fixator was placed on the left tibia awhile back to try and set the leg. Unfortunately, the leg did not stay aligned and is no longer set. If the doctors feel like it is safe to go ahead with that surgery today than they will. We know this is just another bump in the road for my dad. He has proven his will many times over the past 27 days and we know he will continue to do so. Time is dragging for my dad today b/c he is anxious to get down to surgery. He knows the more they do to "fix him" the sooner he will get to go home. As always, please keep my dad in your thoughts and prayers. Whatever you all are doing it is working so please continue. Go Joe go!

Thanks, Dana

DAY 26

Well, I was pleasantly surprised upon my return to hear my father's voice again. Although the sound of it is a little different with him being so weak and all. Nonetheless it is great to be able to communicate with him fully again. He has been cracking jokes the whole time and making us all laugh. He really helps to keep our spirits up.
Today's surgery went well, they drained 2 liters of fluid from the thigh that has been infected. They will not proceed with the other leg until they can get this infection under control. They are worried about putting any more metal in his body until the infection looks better. So we will see what they say tomorrow.
Right now he is watching Tool Time on TV (because finally, after many failed attempts on our part, we have found him a suitable pair of glasses) and resting as comfortably as he can. As usual, he is ready to go into surgery...RIGHT NOW, we just have to wait for the doctors to be ready for him which is supposed to be tomorrow afternoon. More news then.
Good Night for now,
Stacy

Yankees Take 2 of 3 from Sox and Jays

Dad the Yanks continue to play well as described in the heading. Although, the series against the Sox cannot be described well enough by words. It was realy incredible. Anyway, I just returned home from my usual Thursday through Sunday stay at the Albany Medical Center and decided to post on the blog. To summarize Joe's weekend directly, it was horrible. The patient suffered tremendously for + or - 60 hours. He had an immeasurebly difficult time atempting to make a bowel movement. In everyday life this is not a big deal, but for people with severe injuries this can create other complications. And obviously puts the person into severe PAIN. Joe had a lot of ther "stuff" going on also and I am sorry I do not think I will divulge the details here (at least for now). If anyone has taken Cind out of your prayers, PLEASE put her right back in. I mean RIGHT back in because she has not been more than 1 mile from the hospital for almost a month. This is not easy to do under these circumstances. Thank you in advance. Also, Thank you all everywhere you are for your continued energy, care, thoughts, words, Coke, jokes, supplies, time, prayers, and Everything else. Gratefully Robb (R-boy, Freiner)

quick update from room E412B

Hi everybody. After an exhausting weekend for my dad and some set backs we had worries confirmed. My dad has developed an infection in the skin around the surgical site in the femur. We are waiting for him to go to surgery today to clean out the wound site and carefully monitor the infection. We will update further when we hear anything. Please contiue to keep my dad in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you.

Dana

SUNDAY - 5:00 P.M.

Oh, my goodness! I'm back. I'm going to try to catch everyone up a little bit on Joe's medical status. Going back to Joe's surgery on Wednesday, which went well as far as the plastic surgeons are concerned. As Stacy explained, they did not do as much as they had planned. Once they had debrided all the dead tissue, etc., they just laid the Integra. Hopefully, that will take and promote some subcutaneous growth and possibly by the end of this week, they will do the muscle graft and then the skin graft on top of that. Before Joe headed to surgery, his chief orthopedist had him X-Rayed completely and we had some good news and some bad news. Good news - the right side, from the hip and pelvis down is perfectly aligned. They are very pleased. The surgical incision on the thigh is coming along. Still looks pretty nasty, but it had to be made through skin and tissue that was in terrible shape. So it is coming along. The discouraging news was that the fracture in the left tibia, even with the external fixator, has slipped out of place. So, Joe is scheduled for surgery on Tuesday. The plan right now is that he is 4th in line with Dr. L. for that day. They will make an incision (again through skin that looks pretty bad - or as they say, it's okay unless you want to make a surgical incision in it and have it heal and remain infection-free. They plan to do a bone graft, place screws in to keep the pieces together and then put a plate in place. He will at least lose the external fixator and it will free up the knee. Both legs will have CPM machines to keep mobility in the knees. Oh, and then the other discouraging news is that once all of that heals, they will have to do a muscle graft and skin graft on the left leg also. O.K. Enough discouragement for now. I will catch up some more later. Hopefully, there will be some energy left. Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts and prayers. If you can, please keep them up for Joe, Dana Carr and Todd Kitsock. Love, Cindi

DAY 25 - SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16

Greetings from Albany Medical Center - I realize it has been a long time since I personally blogged. I started yesterday morning and somehow lost my blog into cyberspace bec. I had had to leave it for so long to attend to Joe. I was so glad to hear from Thom in his comment on the blog, bec. the whole first part of my blog was trying to set the details straight from Scott's blog about the heroes who all helped save Joe's life. I realized that I didn't have the details straight either. All of the entire event is kind of a fog to all of us and we are just now starting to piece together a few things. But this much we do know - Joe would never have survived if it had not been for the quick response and the expertise of everyone involved. We are so humbled and eternally grateful. We are unable to come up with any words that can describe the depth of our gratitude. There is no question that Fred, Rick, Tom and Matt are True-to-Life HEROES and certainly Guardian Angels to Joe and our family. We can't thank them, the Community Rescue Squad and the Hillsdale Fire Department and everyone involved in Joe's rescue, enough. It helps all of us to have some clarity. If anyone has any further details they would like to share with us, we would be most grateful and would love to hear them. Again, THANK YOU to all of those heroes who kept Joe alive long enough to get him to the Albany Medical Center. Cindi