Connie Foot Update

I haven't given an update yet this year on Connie's foot because one, it was closed, and two, she started the year out in the hospital.  The foot wound closed back in October and we trekked to see the Foot God every two weeks to have him cut off dead skin and any built up scabbing.  By the beginning of December he decided we only needed to come once a month.  The next scheduled appointment was in the first week of the new year, but because Connie was in the hospital due to a medication change, she missed that appointment.  By the time she got out of rehab and the nursing facility and over her bronchitis it had been two months since we had seen the Foot God.  I was having withdrawals.

We were to see him last Wednesday, but when I got to my mother's house she was in trouble.  She was out of it, burning with a high fever, septic, and unable to really move.  The paramedics were called and she spent seven hours in the ER while they worked to get her stabilized.  She had an infection in the body, but no one knew where.  I did.  I asked for the Foot God to be called.  The attending doctor, who was the original doctor when this foot wound began, agreed to call his office telling me, "He likely won't come, but someone in his office will."  I looked at the man and said, "He will come."

And he did.  He arrived after Connie had been moved into the critical care unit.  He was bent over a computer reading up on Connie's case when I came back with her suitcase.  Without thinking, I leaned over and hugged him from behind.  "Oh, a familiar face.  I knew you would come!"  He turned red, laughed, straightened up and said, "How's it going?"  And I knew everything would be better.  He listened to everything, told me he knew something was wrong when we didn't show up for the appointment that day, and went in to check the foot.  Connie was completely out of it and unaware as he unwrapped it, poked on it, and declared it full of fluid.  I asked him if this could be the source of infection and the reason for what was happening and he said it could be.  And then he just did the surgery right there in the room, much to the horror of the nurse.  She cringed through most of it and couldn't believe Connie wasn't moving.  The Foot God told the nurse Connie was neuropathic and continued to cut away on the foot.  She went from this:

To this:

He asked for my assistance after the surgery as the nurse had disappeared.  I wasn't wearing my scrubs, but I held up Connie's foot while he bandaged it.  We both agreed I could work for him, being an expert now in foot wound care.  He patted me and told me he would be back on Friday.

The culture he did on the wound came back as the source of infection.  She had a pulmonologist, an attending doctor, a foot doctor, and an infectious disease doctor on the case.  They put in a PICC line for IV medications and watched her for six days, before moving her across the street to the skilled nursing and rehab facility.  She was to be on the IV medication until the 5th of March, but after several days of the medication she blew up like a balloon in her thighs and hands.  The medications was stopped and we are still waiting on word from the doctor.  The swelling eventually took two days to leak out of her (from any wound holes) and she was quite the little puddle from that.  Despite that, the bone on bone hip, and the recently diagnosed spinal stenosis she is rehabbing and trying to go with the flow.  She developed another nasty skin tear the morning of her next appointment with the Foot God, and as I wheeled her out of the nursing facility to head to the car to take her to the appointment, the nurse assured me they would fix that up when we got back.  I told her not to bother that the Foot God would take care of it.

And he did.  He got out the suture kit and went to work on it.  By the time she was finished at that appointment she looked like a mummy from the knees down.  The foot wound "looked better" and we see him again in another week.

And the saga continues...