Day Forty

9:37 AM
The ortho doctors started rounds at 5:20 again this morning. Several staff members where in throughout the early morning, checking vitals and getting blood etc. We were up for good this morning about 7:30. They have put the cuffs back on Don's right leg to decrease blood clots. I questioned that, but the nurse said she was given orders to put it on the right leg only. Dr. Kuranacker-the ortho surgeon, came in about 8:20 to say that the blood thinning medicine that Don has been taking would probably keep him from having surgery today, after telling us all night that he would have surgery just as soon as they could get him in. They took more blood and said they would let us know within the hour if he was going to go. About 9:15 they arrived from the OR to take him down and I said "so we are sure this is really going to happen now." So we began the same old process of are we going?, no we aren't. So the labs came back and we are not having surgery today. They are starting him on vitamin K and back on Heparin (sp?). This should thicken the blood up so that Don could have surgery Wednesday. The incision looks much better today. But it is no wonder after all the infection they were able to express with pressure last night! If it looked this good yesterday we probably wouldn't be here at all. One thing is for sure, Don won't have to make those two trips to the doctors' offices this week by ambulance! He was dreading those so much. We have been in contact with the nursing center and expressed our feelings of coming back there. I am not sure if I have mentioned it before or not, but Lincoln Nursing Center has the best rehab in the county. Admissions tells us that they are not in need of his bed right now and will let us now if we are in danger of losing it due to new folks wanting to come to the center. I will be staying with Don at night during his stay at CMC. He was crying & scared about coming to the hospital last night and made me promise that I wouldn't leave him. I am however, running to the house here shortly to get some things I will need will we are here for the week. We are hoping that we will be able to go back to the center before the weekend is up this week. Please keep praying!

Day Thirty Nine Part Two

3:53 AM

Well we are back at CMC-Charlotte. Around 8:00 on Sunday night the night nurse came in to change Don's dressing. It was oozing continuously and had more blisters on the incision. She paged 3 doctors and finally the last one contacted her to say we needed to move him to a hospital. Then we called CMC-orthopedics, the docs that did the surgery. Around 9:30 they said he needed to transported to CMC-Charlotte and that the ortho doctor would be waiting for him in the emergency room. We left the nursing center at 10:45 and arrived in Charlotte just before midnight. About 12:45 the ER doctor came in and looked over the incision and said he would be in contact with the ortho doctor. About 1/2 an hour later the ortho doctor came in. He said he wasn't impressed with the look of the incision and really didn't know why we were there that nothing "looked impressive". Then he inserted a swab into the "blister" that busted on Saturday night and it went way up in the incision. When he pulled the swab out, infection came pouring out. He said "now that's impressive". He spent the next 15 minutes or so trying to get some of the infection out and it just kept pouring out. He said Don would have to go back into surgery and that hopefully it would be Monday morning. He was sent to x-ray and then up to the 11th floor tower - the ortho wing. We are in room 11908. We are waiting for a surgery time an will have to be here several days. Please pray! We all need your prayers again!