Follow up Appointment

Today was my follow up appointment with the surgeon to see how I'm healing and so he could go over the details with visual aides and less of a post anesthesia fog. I figured that it wouldn't be that big of a deal except for the fact that it would be the first that I left the house since surgery on Friday. It turned out to be quite a bit more involved and difficult than I had anticipated. Maybe today wasn't the day for me to start tapering off of the pain meds.


I called this morning as instructed and made an appointment for 3:35pm. Let me begin by saying that the two previous visits were both in the morning, had me waiting in the lobby for maybe 5 minutes and were brief and painless. So when we walked in and found a packed waiting room it was obvious that we would have to wait a bit before getting back to the exam room. One of the things about this injury that makes it difficult is the straight-legged position that I am kept in. It is pretty hard to be comfortable anywhere but on a couch or a bed. Something that came about Sunday and has been quite a nuisance is that my ankle has swollen to the size of a large orange or small grapefruit. So without elevation my knee (and now my ankle) tend to throb and make me squirm. So the waiting room was not a place I wanted to spend a lot of time. Can you hear Mick Jagger singing? "You can't always get what you want..."


Eventually they did call me back and the real fun began. First up - the unveiling. With each layer coming off and less support offered to my leg, the more nervous I became. So eventually the brace, the ice pack ez wrap, the medical support hose and several layers of bandages were removed and my leg was out and vulnerable. The swelling is down and the wound is healing well, but what an incision! Its at least 12 inches long from just above my knee, down the shin bone to about where the top of dress socks would stop. It's stapled together with 30 or 40 staples I guess. I'm tempted to post the picture that Danielle took with my phone on here, but it may be too much for some folks to see. (If requested I'll send it to you, but only if you want to see it.) So Dr. Ove was pleased with what he saw outside my leg and now wanted photos of the inside. So after about half a second of discussion it was decided that I needed my brace back on to go over to the xray room. So a temporary dressing was quickly wrapped around my leg and my brace was strapped lightly over my wound and I crutched it over to xray. Xray tables are not in any way comfortable and again the brace had to be removed and I struggled to remain still and hold my leg as requested. The xray tech allowed Danielle to hold my leg for me while she set up for a second angle. Danielle and I waited again while she made sure that the doctor was pleased with the shots before replacing my brace and taking me back to the exam room.

Dr. Ove came in with the xrays and showed me my new hardware. The plate is about as long as the incision and is shaped a little like a golf club or hockey stick because it bends and forms the new "plateau" on top of the bone. Out of the 7 or 8 screws that fasten it to my bone 4 of them are below the fractured section and into good solid bone. The crushed section is all lifted back up and cemented in place in the crook of the plate. My buddy Mike and I were hoping that he would hook up a little speaker in my knee cap to make the bionic man sound effect while I walk or run. No such luck.

Then began the process or re-wrapping me in bandages. The hardest part of that was pulling the support hose back up over the bandages. Due to the swelling in my ankle he wants me to keep the support hose on for a while longer. He said I could continue to ice the ankle, but that there was no need to continue to ice my knee (although Danielle continues to ice both). So Danielle held my leg up by the foot while the nurse slowly worked the hose up an over the bandages from my ankle to the top of my thigh. She then put my brace back on without the ez wrap ice pack inside it. So there are now only a few layers of gauze between the staples/incision and the straps of the brace.

We scheduled to have the staples removed next Monday afternoon and they sent me upstairs to make my first appointment for physical therapy, which will be the following Monday. So things are moving along.

All in all this appointment was a lot more involved than I had anticipated. By the end I was spent and in a good deal of pain as we headed home 2 hours later. On the car ride I also noticed that the nurse had put the brace on about 2-3 inches lower than it should have been, so it was rubbing in all the wrong places. Danielle has become quite proficient with the knee brace and for future appointments I'd prefer her to remove and/or replace it instead of the nurses.

Once home I was brought a marvelous meal by Carol Patterson and with each bite of chicken parmigiana, mashed potatoes and green beans the discomfort of the appointment faded away like a bad dream....

Safe on my couch again

After a send off phone call from Penni we headed to the hospital with Danielle driving me and mom and dad leading the way in their car. I arrived shortly after 11 as instructed. After checking in I was soon taken back to the pre-surgical area where vitals were taken, I got a gown, a bed and an IV was started with fluids. Ran into CC Hays in the lobby and she came in to the pre area and visited with me for a few minutes before she went off to work on a patient of her own. Sure was nice to see a familiar and friendly face. Especially one who works in the hospital. After they got me settled they retrieved Danielle from the waiting room and she came back to sit with me. I met the anesthysiologist and resident who works with Dr. Ove who came to give me an estimate of when we would start. Dr. Ove checked in, verified which knee I wanted surgery on and signed it - right on my kneecap. CC returned and chatted with Danielle and I about her kids and fellowship stuff. A nurse poked her head in and quizically asked me "There's clergy here to see you?" Yep, there sure is, send her in. Guess they aren't used to seeing ministers in the pre-surgical area. So Heather joined our little pow-wow. Not long after there was another familiar voice outside the curtain and Vivian (who teaches Sunday school with me and works in the critical care unit) was down to visit too. So we had quite the gathering and it was pretty hard to be nervous with all these kind caring folks around me. Heather lead us in prayer and then went to bring my parents back. Dr. Patel the anesthesiologist arrived about the same time that they came back and said we were ready to go. He added a shot to my IV and I don't remember anything after getting kisses from my family and he started to wheel me down the hall.

Next thing I remember is waking up in the post-op room. Apparently I woke up "hard" and was thrashing around a bit. My blood pressure was pretty high and they gave me lots of IV drugs to try to bring it down. They had me sitting up in a chair and traded my gown for my t-shirt so that I would begin feeling "normal" soon. Nothing helped that more than an ice cold fountain Coke. Ahh how I love the Coca-Cola! Dr. Ove came by to check on me and tell me how things went. He said that it was fairly difficult, but that they were able to get all the pieces up where he wanted them and use filler to fill the voids. He also explained how they drilled into my femur and low on my tibia to put temporary external bolts. These were used with some contraption that opened the joint up so that they could get in to work without having 4 strong men holding my bones apart while he did his thing. So in addition to the incision there are also two stab wounds and holes in my bones that need to heal. Dr. Ove has already called this morning to see how I'm doing. He wants to see me on Monday and I'll get to see x-rays and he can show me what he did. Hopefully I'll get copies of those and if I can get electronic files I'll post them here. The post op nurse was a bit overwhelming and frankly was not all that gentle with my leg. I thought Danielle and/or Becky were going to step in and whack her. She seemed to be in a hurry to get me out of there and I felt that I would be safer at home and under the care of my wife and family, so off we went. I was back to the saftey of my couch by 5:30 or 6 I think.

I was pretty uncomfortable and in a good deal of pain for the evening and most of the night. Danielle and Mom took shifts being responsible for making sure I stayed on the med schedule, changing ice packs, working on my pillow arrangements and getting me food and drinks through the night and well into the morning. So I made it through the hardest part according to Dr. Ove. He said that I sounded good and that he expected this morning to be the worst time for me.

So I'm over the hard part and have had visits today from Vivian, Ezry, & Jacob and then after sweat equity Dick Cobb, John Burroughs and Jim Nelson came to see me. I can't say enough how much it means to be showered with the care and concern that has been coming my way. I feel totally undeserving of it, but am so appreciative. The spirit definitely is at work in my life and is working through each and every one of these angels that are visiting, writing, feeding and caring for me. I am truly a lucky man.

Surgery Today

After a week of keeping my leg elevated and iced, I go under the knife today. This has been a week of firsts for me -- first broken bone, first ambulance ride, and first surgery. Needless to say, I'm a bit nervous about surgery. Not an irrational - I don't want to do it fear, but just a first time butterflies, I wish I didn't have to do this kind of fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being completely unconscious and relinquishing complete control to someone else. Thinking about what they are going to do and the fear of waking up during the procedure. Fear of not waking up at all. Fear that when I do wake up that I'll have more pain than I do now.

I know that I will feel so much better when this is over with. It will be so nice knowing that my bones are back together and aligned correctly and starting to heal. Every little move this week I worried that I was moving stuff around and making things worse. So a few bolts, screws, metal plates and cement should make things a bit more secure down there.

Some things that wound up being a surprise to me this week - my face broke out like a kid going through puberty. Pain pills have a pesky side effect of constipation (too much information? sorry.). I keep having night spasms that cause my knee to jerk and wake me up in excruciating pain. This first week has actually gone by fairly quickly.

Well, its just about time for me to head over to the hospital so I'll wrap things up here. Keep me and the surgical team in your prayers if you wouldn't mind. Much appreciated.

Diagnosis and Game Plan

So, This is what I've done to my leg. The main difference between what I 've done and this picture is that I managed to smash the other side of the bone. The inside of my knee, not the outside where the fibula attaches.

Apparently these are not very common and everyone in the ER was quite excited to see and share my xrays with each other. When I showed up at the orthopedics office on Friday morning they had already seen the films and were quite impressed. So were the folks at the imaging place that did my CT scan. This would go along with Danielle's philosophy that if you are going to do something, do it big. Dr. Ove drained over 100 cc's of blood off of my knee Friday and again Monday morning which helped a lot with the pressure and pain. Now that I've stopped taking the Ibuprofen hopefully that bleeding will slow considerably. I was fitted with new brace on Friday and given additional prescriptions for Oxycodone and Tramadol. Got the call today that surgery will definitely be on Friday and will be outpatient. Not that I really want to spend the night in the hospital, but I'm pretty surprised that they aren't keeping me overnight. Dr. Ove plans on using plates, screws and bone filler cement to rebuild the top of the bone and get everything lined up where it should be. I will have to stay off my feet for 6 weeks following surgery and rehab is expected to be 3 to 6 months before I can really start working with my leg again. This is going to be quite the test.

My Unforetunate Accident

Well, I really did it this time. I managed to take a two minute, "I'll just take care of that now" situation and turn it into an injury that will keep me unable to work for several months. As part of my job as facility manager I spend a great deal of time working on a beautiful Queen Anne Victorian that our church owns and is restoring. This Thursday I was painting some railing pieces in the basement so that they would be ready to reinstall on the front porch on Saturday. When I finished I was heading back to the main office building to check in and grab my wallet since I was hungry and ready for lunch. As I walked across the driveway/parking area behind the house I noticed that the tar paper that had recently been hung was blowing free and could use a few staples to reattach it. This tar paper was on a section of wall that ran parallel to the cellar steps. The cellar steps had been enclosed, but as we have prepared for a new stair tower and lift for the back of the house we removed the enclosure. Worried that rainwater would find its way into the basement, we came up with a temporary cover for the stairs to divert the rain away from the cellar door. Our temporary solution was to take two walk boards (12 foot 2x10s) and lean them from the driveway against the house. There was a nice 2 inch lip at just the right spot above the doorway to give a nice slope for the walk boards. On those we laid a piece of 1/4 inch ply to create a temporary roof to divert rainwater from getting into the stairwell and under the door. A partial cinder block to keep the plywood from blowing away completed this set up. Simple solution that worked quite well, but was never intended to hold any weight.

So here I was with the need to staple the tar paper down and seeing the walk board and temporary roof as the "perfect" place to stand to accomplish my task. I knew that this was a bad idea, but thought its only going to take me a few seconds to complete this. Surely it could hold me.....wrong!

So I tentatively headed up the plank listening and feeling for problems and began stapling the tar paper back in place. I finished and put a few more staples in "for good measure" when I thought I heard a crack over the MP3 player that I was listening to. As I reached to pause the music to verify what I had heard there was a horrible splitting sound and I felt the whole rig
beneath my feet give way and felt myself falling into the stairwell from about 3 feet above the top of the opening. My right knee made contact with the brick wall before anything else and I felt a sickening pop before crashing down into the stairwell on top of plywood walk boards and cinder block. My initial thought was that my knee was dislocated and would need to be popped back in place as had happened with my left knee 2 years ago. Oh how I wish that was all that had happened.

I opened my phone to call for help and saw a missed call from Danielle, so I hit "send" and explained my predicament. She said she was on her way and would take me to the hospital. I tried to move, got nauseous and thought I might pass out. I decided to call the office in case I lost consciousness and to let Adela know that I would be leaving. I asked her to come sit with me while I waited for D. When she saw my predicament and realized I couldn't get out of the hole she made the wise decision to call 911. The paramedics and EMTs splinted my leg and it took 4 or 5 of them to get me out of the stairwell and loaded into the ambulance. My first ambulance ride. No sirens, really bumpy and quite painful.

I was placed on the "fast track" in the ER, and anxiously awaited the offer of pain meds. Someone came to take me to the x-ray lab and Danielle spoke up for me and said that there was no way I could handle the movement that they would do in x-ray without some pain meds. CC a great nurse practitioner gave me 2 pills and a shot of anti-inflammatory in my hip before x-ray and I never would have made it without them.

Diagnosis - plateau fracture(s) of the tibia that needs 7-10 days worth of swelling reduction before an operation to rebuild the bone can be done.

Danielle, Mom, Dad, Bill and Heather all hanging out with me and/or in the waiting room for hours before being told, your leg is broken, go home elevate it and put ice on it. We'll do something next week! Crazy.

Weekend Details

We started out at First Presbyterian in the Senior High room of the Kinhart Center. It took a little while to get all the participants together and in the room, but once we were all there Bob, the rector from St. Anne's opened the retreat with a few words of welcome and told the group how proud all the churches were of them for even undertaking this challenge and then lead us in prayer. We did introductions and played a few ice breaker, getting to know you type of games since we had youth from 4 different churches and many different schools who had never met before.


At 11 we headed down to St. Anne's and turned their parish hall into a sandwich making assembly line. We made and bagged over 700 sandwiches with supplies provide by Happy Helpers for the Homeless and with the lunch meat that the youth brought. Each participant was asked to bring 4 pounds of lunch meat. (side note - Steven and Martin brought a 10.5 pound spiral cut ham which we ended up not using!). We filled all the plastic bins that Bobbi gave us and a few shopping bags of our own. We also packed 26 lunch bags with 4 sandwiches, a juice box, trail mix, tasty cakes, and a hospitality bag to distribute in Glen Burnie. The hospitality bag consisted of a pair of socks, toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, and soap. We then drove to Harundale Presbyterian Church where a group was waiting as they are every Saturday to be fed by Happy Helpers. We were filling in for Bobbi and her volunteers on this particular weekend while they were throwing an Easter Party for a group of Guatemalan families on the eastern shore. We were a bit late and didn't pull up in the right spot which the group was quick to point out, but they were very appreciative of the lunches. This gave the youth a chance to interact with people that are experiencing hunger and homelessness on a regular basis very close to the suburban comfort that we happen to be fortunate enough to live in. I saw several folks that I recognized from the Winter Relief shelter that is run in our county. Our church hosts it for a week every February. One guy greeted me like I was a long lost friend and I felt just the same upon seeing a face that I recognized when I turned around to hand over the lunch bag. I met a lady with a small girl of 7 or 8 years old who inquired about the Easter Basket that Bobbi Coffman makes for her every year. There were elderly folks - one lady in a motorized chair; blacks, whites, and Hispanics; men, women and children. There was no one thing to unify this group except the fact that they needed food and knew where to come to get it on a Saturday afternoon. The rest of the sandwiches were delivered to a 7-Eleven where Bobbi has arranged for them to be stored in the walk in cooler until Sunday when her next group of volunteers would pick them up to take into Baltimore for distribution. I am looking forward to working with Happy Helpers again very soon.


Next we headed back to St. Anne's to spend some time studying, discussing and reflecting on hunger. We spent some time with the materials provided by World Vision and reviewed hunger statistics. We then read and discussed the gospel story of Jesus feeding the thousands. Dan explained how what we were doing was important as a spiritual discipline for our own growth, but that it could be an even more powerful act if, like Jesus we did it publicly and challenged affluent Annapolis to stop and think about those that are hungry. A discussion followed and the youth decided that they would like to go out into the streets with signs filled with hunger statistics and make a public witness about their famine and about what Jesus taught. So we cut up cardboard boxes and grabbed poster board, split into three separate groups and marched through busy tourist filled downtown Annapolis like a cross between panhandlers and the anti-tobacco ads to tell folks about our famine. Each group had at least one youth with a sign that said "I'm hungry, Ask me why!" My group got many "whys" and lots of funny stares. One group was actually heckled by a 60 year old woman who said "Its called E-A-T!" I think she missed the point.

During the time that we would normally be having dinner we headed to Severna Park for a few hours of bowling. This was probably one of the hardest parts of the weekend for most of us. We were surrounded by pizza, popcorn, nachos, and pitchers of soda. Our group was horrified to watch the young ladies bowling in the lane next to us barely touch their nachos and then casually toss them in the trash uneaten before leaving. I doubt that any of us would have paid that simple act any attention on a normal day.

After bowling we headed down south to All Saints Episcopal Church in Calvert County for the night. We had some free time to explore and hang out and then turned off all of the lights for a youth group favorite - Sardines. (For anyone who isn't familiar with Sardines it is a variation on hide-n-seek with only one person hiding and everyone else searching for them. When the hider is found, you hide with them until everyone is packed into the hiding space like sardines and one poor soul - me in our first round - is wandering the dark building wondering where everyone else has gone). We had hoped to have some time for quiet reflection to use their labyrinth, but unfortunately it was raining. August and the youth from All Saints then prepared the sanctuary and we had a candlelit evening prayer service (Compline) to end the day.

We got up Sunday morning and had a brief time of reflection before 6 of the youth that volunteered to read in the service headed off to prepare. The palm Sunday service at All Saints was very nice and August announced to the congregation who the unfamiliar faces from our group were and what we had been doing. Our fast was technically broken by communion and the Eucharist had special symbolism for me this day as I knelt and waited for the elements to be be handed to me. I couldn't help but make the connection to a soup kitchen line and the grace of a gift freely given. One of the most powerful communions that I have ever participated in.

Our youth did a great job reading their parts and when the service was over we all rushed to the parish hall to finally eat. We had lasagna (meat and veggie), mac n cheese, bread and a variety of apples to choose from. Well worth the wait.

All in all it was a great event and I'm so proud of everyone. Dan and August were wonderful to collaborate with and the youth make me love my job more every day.

Pictures

We did it!

Well, we did it. I am so proud of the youth this weekend. We had 13 youth do the whole famine and 3 that participated in part of the event. I will write more about the details after work.

30 Hour Famine and Faith

For anybody wondering what a 30 Hour Famine is all about - http://www.30hourfamine.org/.


I have to admit I'm a little nervous about it. I'm not really nervous about not eating. I've gone stretches without eating before. I guess its the usual butterflies before a big event. This is also the first event that I've done of this magnitude combining with other youth groups. Dan and I combined our groups for a Super Bowl party, but that was fairly straightforward and confined. This is for a much longer period of time, has a lot of logistics, is overnight and we are doing something fairly difficult with 18 teenagers. We've had multiple planning sessions, have good materials from World Vision, and faith that we and our youth are up to the challenge.


Bottom line - Faith is what it's all about. Faith can stagnate if you don't continue to challenge yourself. And having doubts from time to time is normal. It is not a one time thing. You can't just say I'm a Christian, I have faith and now I'm done (or Dunn in my case..). It has to be replenished. One of the best ways I know how to do that is by facing challenges. Sometimes challenges are thrust upon you like an illness or a tragedy. Sometimes you've got to make a decision about whether or not to take on a challenge. My faith has grown immensely because of the challenges that I've faced that I had no choice about. Well, I had a choice about how to respond to them, but I had no say in whether my wife was bipolar or whether my mom got cancer. Those things happened regardless of what I did. And I'm not saying that my faith could heal either of them. What it did was help me to accept the reality of those diagnoses and to be present with my wife and my mom regardless of where their paths lead. I have faith that whatever happens, God is with them and with me and that no matter how much circumstances may suck that everything will be alright.

So off I go to test my faith and to walk with 20 others who are willing to do the same. Keep us in your prayers. (individual faith is awesome, but the combined faith of many is even more powerful)

30 Hour Famine

So, I'm home on my day off and preparing for the 30 Hour Famine that my youth group is doing this weekend along with the groups from St. Anne's, All Saints and a couple from the Annapolis Friends Meeting House. As usual, I was procrastinating and I was checking out the blog of a girl in our group who is studying in Italy for 6 months through AFS (American Field Sevices) to see if she's added anything recently and decided to finally create one of my own.

So here I am with not much to say, but my blog looked so empty without a post.....