Incredible Blessing

We received an amazing blessing on Wednesday when Kyle came through his surgery with his foot still intact.  He has 2 open incisions still in his foot and the wounds on his heel now that we need to get to heal.  They have packed his wounds with sponge and attached a wound vac to them. 

We came home late this afternoon with the wound vac in Kyle's foot and a pick line in his arm so we can run IV antibiotics twice a day for the next 8 weeks.  Home health nurses will come and change his bandages and help out.  The biopsy on his bones show a little infection in them, but they are going to give us 8 weeks to see if we can get him to heal before they do anything drastic. 

It is good to be home.  I can't wait to sleep in my own bed tonight.  Six nights in the hospital have sure taken a lot out of me and I'm exhausted. 

Thank you all for your love, prayers, and concern.  We couldn't have made it through everything we have without our amazing friends and family.

Button's Visit

Marijka's Big Day

Marijka had a big day last Sunday, May 22nd.  She spoke in sacrament meeting and received her Young Womanhood Medallion.  Then that night she graduated from Seminary.  I missed the whole thing because I was at the hospital with Kyle.  Rumor has it that she gave a great talk and everyone enjoyed it.  She has worked hard to earn her medallion and I am very proud of her. 

I can't believe she is 18 and graduating from high school tomorrow.  Her graduation is at the USU Spectrum tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m.  When I graduated we were only given 2 tickets for our family to attend, so it is nice they have it at the Spectrum now where anyone can come.  We are all very proud and excited for her.  Marijka is a huge help to me and I don't know what I would do without her.  Congratulations on your graduation Marijka! We are so excited for you.  You have become a beautiful young woman and we love you!

Surgery

Kyle is currently in surgery.  He went in about 12:30 and we don't know how long it will take.  It depends on what they find when they get in there.  If any of the bones are infected then they will have to remove them which means he will lose at least part of his foot.  They are removing the hardware from the surgery he had a few months ago.  Last night he had a lump on the left side of his foot and the doctor lanced it.  He ended up draining a ton of puss and disgusting stuff out of it.  He then filled the hole with several yards of gauze.  It was incredibly disgusting.  So with all of this, plus the sores on the heel the doctor says the foot is basically self destructing.  There really was no other option than to go in and see what is going on inside.  So we are sitting here waiting for news with no idea what the outcome of this will be.  It basically came down to the fact that we would rather lose part of Kyle than Kyle himself.  Please pray for him.

Update on Kyle

Kyle's blood culture came back that he has a strain of staff infection called MRSA.  MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus bacteria.  Which means it is resistant to many antibiotics.  Luckily they suspected that was what he had and they have had him on the right ones.  Dr. Francis says he will have to go home with a pick line and more IV antibiotics.  They don't want to put the pick line in for a couple of days because bacteria likes plastic and it would have a good chance of becoming infected.  So we will be here for at least a couple of days.

Kyle's foot and leg are horribly swollen and very warm to touch.  The ulcer is now surrounded by redness so there is no doubt that is where the infection is coming from.  I didn't think there ever was, but I guess they weren't completely sure the first day or two.  Kyle is down getting x-rays right now, but he pretty much just sleeps all the time.  He told Dr. Francis this morning that he felt like he had been hit by a train.  Yesterday morning he told me a truck so I guess it is worse today.  His fever broke during the night and hasn't come back yet, but it probably will. 

They brought breakfast and the only thing he touched were some grapes.  He isn't eating much of anything.  They had to put in a 2nd IV line this morning and it took them 5 tries.  Luckily Kyle didn't hit any of the 3 different nurses it took to get it done.  His fever broke during the night but is now back up to 101, but he is currently having chills. 

Anyway that is the latest from Room 391 in Logan.

Gross!!!

We are in the ICU at Logan Regional Hospital.  I brought Kyle into the ER last night with what we thought was bronchitis or pneumonia.  He started coughing on Thursday.  He had chills and a fever Friday night but it went away with Tylenol.  Then last night he started having a really hard time breathing and he was burning up.  I didn't dare go to bed in case he quit breathing and couldn't let me know so we decided he needed to be checked. 

After I think pretty much every test imaginable we ended up being admitted into the ICU with suspected sepsis.  The suspected culprit was his foot, but he still had the cast on so it couldn't be determined until we got the cast off this morning.  As you can see from the picture it is awful.  He hadn't even complained that it was hurting until Friday night. 

The treatment is no pressure on his heel at all and tons of different antibiotics and medications.  He is in pain and they have given him some morphine and lortab tonight and he is pretty much out of it.  He is still struggling with his breathing and his fever stays between 100 and 101.  He's a pretty sick guy. 

When Seasons Change

There is a blog out there: http://thegypsymama.com/ that has what is called 5 minute Friday.  On Fridays she picks a topic and writes about it for 5 minutes and then posts it unedited. 

Today the topic is When seasons change...   This brings to mind two entirely different thought processes into my mind.  The first being that we have been in the season of spring now for what feels like forever and I'm thinking it may never change to summer.  Unlike a lot of people I could actually be fine with that.  I'm not a hot weather person.  The 60's and 70's are great for me.  It's been a little chillier than that around here but I'm still not minding it.  I am hoping for Janalee's sake that it doesn't rain tomorrow morning.  Her and Matt are having their pre-wedding pictures taken and so some dry weather for a few hours would be a nice thing for them.

This kind of brings me around to my other thought process about seasons changing and that is the seasons of life.  It never stays the same for long.  For me something new seems to be thrown at me on almost a daily basis.  Today was my last day working for the School District.  I am now unemployed and desperately searching for a decent job with good health insurance.  So please keep me in mind if you should hear of something.  Kyle and I have been living in a constant state of change since the moment we met.  Today we have been pushed into taking a giant step of faith.  We have no idea what is going to come next.  Luckily we can keep our insurance through Cobra.  Unfortunately that will take my entire unemployment each month to pay for it.  How are we going to pay our other bills?  No idea.  We do know Heavenly Father has a plan for us and all of these challenges are leading somewhere, but we have no idea where that might be.  So like I said: Faith.  Faith that someday soon it might become clear to us where we are going and why we have had to take this rough road to get there.

Another change of seasons is upon my family as Marijka graduates from high school on the 1st of June and Janalee and Matt get married on the 4th.  So even though it may seem like we are stuck in Spring the seasons of life are moving right along.

Meeting Miss Ella Sue

Kyle and I got to drop by the hospital during my lunch break the other day and meet the newest member of the family.  She is a doll and has hair to die for.  It is even frosted a nice lighter color on the ends.  Of course she immediately won our hearts as all new additions to the family do.   Congratulations to Emily, Sean, and their family on the newest addition.  They aren't the best photos, but you get the idea.  Tonight we are tending the G-man and Abby so we will report on our adventures in a later post.  Garrett can't wait to come see his friend Kyle and Button.

Kyle Begins Treatment for the Charcot Arthropathy

So they have this new cast they have come up with to treat people with charcot arthropathy called a total contact cast.  People with diabetes are very susceptible to getting horrible sores on their feet if anything rubs them wrong.  It is quite the process of a series of layers.  This cast is totally molded to Kyle's foot so that it can't rub or move around creating sores. On the top of the cast he wears a knee high black boot (or "The Beast" as Susan named it when she had to wear it to not one but two of her children's weddings) to protect it.  The great thing is that he can put a reasonable amount of weight on his foot.  He isn't totally dependent on the crutches.  So that was the bright spot of the day.  It will be changed every 2 weeks.  They don't expect any healing of the broken bones to show up for at least a month so he won't have any more tests until then.  They are hoping he will only be in the casts for a couple of months and then move onto to braces or whatever comes next.  The doctor said we will be fighting this off and on pretty much forever. 

Did I mention we love Dr. Heninger and his staff!!!  We definitely feel we have ended up with the doctor we need to have to treat this problem.  I was somewhat molified that Kyle got a personal phone call from his previous foot doctor the other day to apologize for not doing more about the problem.  When I spoke with his nurse to tell her we wouldn't be returning she was very surprised that after 6 weeks of treating it as an infection they hadn't actually ever run any kind of blood culture or anything to verify it was actually an infection.  Needless to say we are done with the foot doctors at the Logan Regional Hospital.

Before & After Hair Cut

Kyle's been tossing around the idea of shaving his head for a while now.  Last night he decided to go for it.  It will be easier for the summer.  Plus he has a little OCD thing about having to have his hair washed everyday and it's not easy to do with a cast on your leg.  So I think he figured it would just be easier.  Isn't he cute?

My Reason to Relay & Garage Sale Reminder

The American Cancer Society Relay For Life is more than just an event to me. It is my personal opportunity to help save lives from cancer by supporting the American Cancer Society.

We originally started participating after the Petersen's lost Vone and then Claude to cancer.  Since that time my sister Janaee and best friend Britney have both become survivors of thyroid cancer and my Grandpa Farrell suffered from prostate cancer which contributed to his death.  Craig's brother Bruce is currently fighting against cancer.

Tomorrow we will be holding at garage sale from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 264 East Main in Wellsville.  All proceeds will go to the American Cancer Society.  Please take time to stop by and check it out.  If you have anything you would like to donate it isn't too late.  Give one of us a call and we will come pick it up tonight.  Just leave a message at 245-4500.

It's amazing to think that millions of people will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Somebody close to us may be one of them.

But, by taking part in Relay, I am helping the American Cancer Society save lives by:

• Helping people stay well by helping them take steps to prevent cancer or detect it early, when it’s most treatable
• Helping people get well by being in their corner around the clock to guide them through every step of their cancer experience
• Finding cures by funding groundbreaking research that helps us understand cancer’s causes, determine how best to prevent it and discover new ways to cure it
• Fighting back by working with lawmakers to pass laws to defeat cancer and rally communities worldwide to join the fight

Please support my efforts by making a donation or by joining my Relay For Life team. Together, we have the power to help create a world where cancer can no longer claim another year of anyone’s life.

Thank You!!!

If you can help with a donation, please donate here at my page:

Click here to visit my PERSONAL page.If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address:
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?px=11794761&pg=personal&fr_id=30492&fl=en_US&et=XYYr5iVTOswa3udnxH4mGA..&s_tafId=813541

Garage Sale for American Cancer Society

Each Summer, our family participates in the Relay for Life which is sponsored by the American Cancer Society. We do this in honor of Janalee who has survived cancer and our other family members who passed away from cancer. We're getting a jump-start on our fundraising this year and having a garage sale this Saturday. ALL proceeds will be donated to the ACS through our Relay team. If you have anything you would like to donate to our garage sale (and live within a reasonable distance), please let us know and we will get it from you.  We have a truck and trailer so anything that will fit on them we will be glad to take to sell. 

If you have nothing to donate to sell but would like to check out what we are selling it will be held from 8 am-12 pm at 264 East Main, Wellsville, Utah.

We are still going to be collecting donations for our auction at the actual relay so you if have any goods or services to donate for that let me know and I'll pick it up.  The items donated last year were awesome and helped us immensely.  Gift certificates and homemade craft items were the favorites.

Charcot Arthropathy

The current diagnosis of Kyle's foot is that it is not infected.  He has what is called Charcot Arthropathy or Charcot Foot.  I said in my last post I was looking for the blessing in this latest challenge.  I found it in the fact that our doctor last night in the ER was Dr. Stolworthy (who is my favorite of all the ones we see there).  When I said I wasn't sure I wanted him to call in the same podiatrist we have been dealing with.  He immediately said he was glad to hear that because he felt his neighbor was the foot doctor we needed to deal with this. 

When Dr. Francis came in this morning he looked at the foot and didn't think it seemed infected.  He went out and called Dr. Heninger and confered with him.  He was back in about 10 minutes with the idea that after going over the CT scan together they felt it was this Charcot foot thing and not an infection.  I was worried because Dr. Heniger wasn't listed on as being on our insurance.  When he came in at lunch time he said he can bill our insurance as long as we are seen in his Brigham City clinic instead of Logan.  Which is no problem for us, because it's not that much difference by the time you come clear through Logan to here.  So that was another blessing answered.  We were very impressed with him.  He is young and positive and told us he can get Kyle back on his feet.  In reading about the disease on the internet they say it often goes undiagnosed until the foot is completely deformed because not many doctors are aware of it, so we are very grateful to have been led to Dr. Heninger.

This is a complication of diabetes that those with neuropathy can get.  Which is something Kyle has had in his feet for awhile.  There is very little pain because he doesn't have a lot of feeling in his feet.  If he did it would be very painful.  We are looking at no weight bearing on his foot for probably 6 to 9 months.  It can even take 1 to 2 years to totally solve this problem.  The bones in Kyle's foot are breaking down and his muscles aren't supporting the foot as well as they should.  He will be put in a cast as soon as we get the kidneys under control and can get him over to the clinic in Brigham. 

Although this is going to be a long process and Kyle is looking at another summer of no water sports at least we aren't looking at possible amputation due to a bone infection.

Let's hope this is still the prognosis tomorrow and we don't do another 360 degree turn around.  It is hard to look at how long this is going to lay Kyle up and he is having a hard time with it, but at least is isn't an infection.

Thank you all for your love and support.  We have a great support system and we couldn't be luckier.  If any of you have any ideas how to keep Kyle from going crazy for the next year please feel free to let me know. 

Here We Are Again

This is as close to a smile as we are going to get.

 

It has actually been more swollen than this

It is Sunday night about 7:30 p.m. and Kyle and I are sitting in his room at the Logan Regional Hospital. I was busy all day yesterday so Kyle was in Salt Lake with his parents trying to relieve some of the boredom of always sitting around the house. His foot started to smell so his mom took him into InstaCare. They said he had infection and his kidneys weren't looking great. They gave him some IV antibiotics and left the port in so he could go back and get more on Monday. Today we got a call that someone else had looked at his test results and that he had infection in his bone and his kidneys were in big trouble. We were to get him to the ER as soon as possible for more aggressive treatment.

So now he has been admitted. They said he has an oozing bone infection and his kidneys are failing again. We have a new foot doctor and he said he will be operating at some point to remove the plate from Kyle's foot and then we are looking at 8 to 9 weeks of IV antibiotics. At that point we will decide if it is necessary to put it back in. The kidneys are being treated with fluids and hopefully will turn around and improve like they did the last time. If anyone can help me see the blessing in this one let me know. I'm looking for the bright side.