THIS IS DAY 342 - JULY 30, 2008

Here I am again, with apologies for the redundancy and wordiness of the last blog. It was partially for my benefit, but also to show those of you who we haven't seen in a while, why we were once again lulled into a false sense of security that all was well and that we would continue to move ahead in a positive direction. So, just a teeny little bit more of history.
In order to get physical and occupational therapy in Florida, some places required a prescription from a Florida state physician. This was also tricky bec. not all facilities offer occupational, as well as physical, and not all orthopedic doctors are willing to write a prescription for both. So we were armed with our scripts from our NY doctors and internet researched names of MDs in Fla. Now, we had just about barely settled into our home away from home and we noticed that the skin around the right hip wound was breaking open in a small spot. This was where Joe had overdone it with the healing and had developed a calcification that was sticking directly out from the femur. It had grown so much that it was now breaking through the skin. We knew what it was, as it was very obvious on his X-Rays, so when we went to the orthopedist to try to get a Fla. state Rx, we pointed it out to him. He took one look at the site and the extent of Joe's injuries and obviously didn't want to get involved and just said to see our orthopedist as soon as we got home (as if we wouldn't). Anyway, things went relatively smoothly from there on. We got our scripts and moved on with therapy. Again, the myofascial release that our therapist Jim began was absolutely invaluable. The first major thing Jim worked on was Joe's chest and around his lungs. Because both lungs were punctured and all of the ribs were broken in multiple places, and because everything just healed as he lay in his hospital bed, his chest was very tight and his lungs had to kind of find a new and different shaped home for themselves. He was never able to take a deep breath - it was all shallow breathing, always leaving him kind of breathless. Once Jim was able to release the myfascia around the area - Voila, deep breaths! So he needed to keep up his deep breathing so it didn't tighten again. As Jim explained it and as I understood it - the inside of the entire body is covered with myofascia - a netting sort of thing - which when presented with trauma and/or long periods of inactivity acts like a wool sweater that has been washed in the washing machine - it shrinks and tightens. Thus, the great importance of loosening it. Joe really benefitted from it and we planned to continue it when we got back north, which we will still do, but as I'll explain, things have gotten in the way of our forward progress.
Now, shortly bef. we left Fla., Joe developed a click in his left pinky, which wouldn't have been bad, except that he also couldn't bend it at all. As soon as we both got back from Fla., we spent a whole week seeing all of his doctors and getting surgeries scheduled. I think Scott updated the blog when Joe had his A1 trigger released. No problem. Out-patient surgery. All went well. Just a minor hold-up in hand therapy until all the stitches were out. Next surgery scheduled was to remove the exostosis (extra bone Joe grew) from the femur. This did require hospitalization, but was only a couple of days and again we anticipated that all would go smoothly. It did seem to. The surgeon said everything went fine, although when he got in there, it was not just a small piece of bone but as he worked at it. it turned out to be "the size of a very large soup bone" (his words, not mine). We did see a couple of old friends (our good friends, the wound VAC nurses), and in a couple of days, we were out of there. Instructions to go back to the orthopedist for stitch removal and X-rays, but as these two surgeries were #14 and #15 (who would want to end up on #13 - very unlucky), we figured we were about done and when Joe recovered from this, we would get back to therapy and moving forward. Little did we know what was in store for us. To be continued later. Love, Cindi