Hello Everyone, It has been a while. Jim is still hanging in, but weaker physically as I predicted. He will be 81 this year, and was doing great till @ Sunday night. His replaced left knee began to hurt severely when he would get up to go to bed. By Wednesday I had him using his walker in the house, but he was fine on Thursday when I went to work. I got home @ 6:38 and turned into the den after calling hello. He met me with “Hi, Mimi! I am so glad your home! I fell and think I broke my leg!” He was sitting in his recliner with left leg out in front straight out. He kept wanting me to get him up. ( It was a Thursday night when I came home and found him comatose from his stroke too. Not a fun pattern.)
So 911 and hospital ER. Unfortunately doc there took Jim as weak, old guy who fell. Took scans and X-ray and finally came back and said nothing broken so we can’t admit him and will start wheels turning to get him into rehab. It will take a while. Another doc came on later and I really fussed about his knee - as far as I knew from Jim cause of fall! Another doc, my fussing, PT eval and fact that two men could not get him up got us admitted by noon Friday. Due to blood thinner, had to wait till Monday afternoon to aspirate knee. Fluid had blood but no pus. Evidently first thing they look for in replaced joints that suddenly start hurting is infection. So cultures started, but Tuesday morn brought ortho guy saying not enough evidence yet to go in and clean out knee. Scans did not show anything out of place with replacement. For some reason they took him back for another X-ray, and results confirmed why he could not move leg and fussed so when turned in bed. His left hip broken! Turned out ER doc DID NOT x-ray hip, just knee!!! Me and ortho guy not happy, he was apologetic, but let’s get this fixed. He is a trauma bone guy. If you can have a good broken hip, he said Jim did. Top of femur, below ball, and in a small window that can make all the difference. Arthroscopic surgery, 3 small incisions, couple of smaller rods and voila! @ 1:00 tomorrow, and this fix meant to be walked on right away. If all goes well, 2-3 more days in hospital the transfer to rehab. I am having deja vu of Bill Russell and Pete Strickland. Jim’s recovery from his stroke event different, and fall due to collapsed knee as far as we can tell by fall site at home. I asked doc if his hip could have been the problem all along, but he said no. We know Jim went down hard on knee, and could have hit hip on very solid side/leg of recliner on way down. We will never know. Stats for recovery not helpful on this, so any prayers or positive thoughts would be appreciated. Due to lingering issues from stroke and some other things, doc said if Jim makes his 6 month check up at his office, his chances for survival of more than a year go way up! So goal! A lot up to him though, and me. Lots of hard work ahead for both of us. I still have to work @ 30 hours a week too for normal financial stability. I have always told him I want minimum 50 years, and we are coming up on 47. His mom survived a broken hip and lived to be 103, but had not had a stroke. Hope you are as well as possible, staying safe, and going caving. Wish my post was on a happier note. Respectfully, Mimi Jasek Sent from my iPhone _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
