All is not well in the land of Oz

I have been very diligently taking care of the surgery site - washing, soaking, changing the dressing, etc. Ron has been diligent in trying to walk as much as possible to help build up his strength and to maintain the strength he has. When I got home from work yesterday, he said that his heel was hurting - a deeper hurt than he was used to. That in itself is unusual because with the peripheral neuropathy, he has no feeling in that foot and even when they poke and prod at the doctor's office, they don't hurt him. Saying he had "pain" in the heel tipped me off that things were not going well.

When I took off the bandage I did look at it - probably not as closely as I should have but it was late, I was tired, and he didn't feel very good. In hindsight, I don't know what I would have done any differently last night as opposed to this morning, except maybe not sleep worrying about it. When I got up this morning I looked it over really well in the light and knew as soon as I touched the heel that we had trouble - right here in River City!

So, I called to see about getting an appointment with our family physician but she's already started her long weekend. Drats - had to see a fill-in. Nothing personal about the fill-in, but he doesn't know Ron as well as even any of the other three in the office. Figured he was still a professional and better to judge what was going on than I was. When the nurse took off the bandage she said, "Oh my, that looks infected." We knew that but to have someone else concur with us was a relief. The doctor said that at this point, he didn't feel like an antibiotic would be of any benefit (same thing the surgeon said last week). He said that it was obvious that walking on the foot was breaking down the surrounding tissue and because of that, he agreed that the foot was going to have to come off. We gave it our best shot, but some things just play out differently than what you hope for or plan for.

When I told him what the surgeon had said he agreed, saying that because of the breakdown of the tissue, and because of Ron's other health issues (including the lack of good circulation there), that a mid-calf amputation was the best solution and "sooner" better than "later." When we return to the surgeon next Friday we're going to tell him to schedule it.

Ron has a wedding to attend that he doesn't want to miss. Even if I have to check him out of the rehab facility to attend Amy's wedding, he'd rather go feeling good minus half a leg than to not feel good enough at all to attend because he's got infection running through his body.

I keep saying that we're playing the hand that we've been dealt - but I sure with I could change out a few cards.