Skin Grafting this week ...

We are home from Chicago! I apologize that I didn't get the blog updated sooner ... there were Internet problems at the hotel. It has been a long and emotionally tiring several days, but overall all went well with doctor visits and traveling.

Skin grafting needs to happen and it is a bigger deal than I thought. I didn’t want to do this necessarily in Chicago, but it looks like that is what is going to occur. I wasn't able to locate a surgeon in St. Louis that would work with me on an open foot wound. We will have made three trips to Chicago in three weeks ...

The toe pins are out! The dynamic positioning issue continues to be baffling and puzzling. The surgeon had a med student join her from Northwestern University and he had never seen anything like it. She (surgeon) had talked with the plastic surgeon and gave him the background of my situation, which helped significantly.

I agreed to do whatever is needed to get the wound to close and four weeks of physical therapy. If at the end of the therapy month, the pain and function have not improved then our only choice is to transition to the prosthetic option. We could amputate either the front half of the foot or at the ankle (and keep the heel area). Lots to learn on this yet …. she is still hopeful that the pain will decrease and the function will improve, but at the same time understands that I need closure with all of this.

We met with the plastic surgeon in Evanston, IL (about 20 minutes from the orthopedic surgeon's office) that has a particular interest in wound care and getting challenging wounds to heal. He said that the wound is not going to heal on its own and skin grafting is needed. The blood flow is okay, no hardware needs to be moved, and the pulse in the foot is okay. It looks rawer now than ever – he opened it up more in the office, to allow it to drain.

There is no infection in the wound now, but the longer we go with it open … this risk increases. We planned the skin grafting surgery for this Thursday, May 31st (2:45pm) in Evanston, IL. I need to spend one night in the hospital and then return for a follow-up appt. six days later. We will likely graft skin from my hip. No weight on the foot for at least a week and then the foot needs to remain elevated for 90% of the time for the next few weeks. He cleaned out the wound and the plan is to keep it as clean as possible until the surgery happens. No physical therapy can happen until the skin grafting is healed. Obviously, you can't live with a chronic open wound, so we have to try what is needed to get the wound to close.

Thanks for your continued prayers. I am not going to to be able to travel to Portland as I had planned for work. Managing the foot situation and two weeks of summer camp is going to be a lot for June. I am thankful that the plastic guy was able to work me into his schedule this coming week, but am not anxious for more surgery, sutures, pain, etc.

Hope you have a great holiday weekend!

je