I’m Still Alive

Feel like I got run over by a truck but I’m Still Kicking.

I’m groggy as hell, hurting am still in ICU

They are supposed to be moving me sometime later today to a regular room

They came up with a change of plans at the last minute and I was spared getting Shishkabobbed across the belly from one side to the other so that is good.

Maybe later I will be able to explain what they did.

Right now I’m doing good just typing this out on my phone

Thanks for the prayers and well wishes.

Aaaand I’m out again.

Phil

Surgery Update

I went in Monday at 7:30 to have several Ultrasounds done before the surgery. Lower abdomen and both legs.

The original plan was to have them ram a tunnel across my lower belly, thread an artificial artery through from one side to the other and splice the right side upper femoral artery to below the blockage they couldn’t get out on the left side and then ram another tunnel from the left side under the new splice down my thigh and reconnect to the Femoral artery just above the knee. The Untrasounds revealed a new narrowing in the artery just below the left knee so now plans have changed. I am going in this Friday at 7:00 for check in and they added another surgeon. They are going to do some Angioplasty on this newly discovered narrowing and put a stent in just below the knee so when they splice in from above there will be better blood flow down to my lower left leg which is the whole purpose of this surgery in the first place. They figure 6 hours even with 2 surgeons and probably 2 months to recuperate. Myself, I think it’s going to be longer because I m still not 100% healed up from the surgery last December.

It’s like I told CederQ, the only way forward is through and it is what it is. I am very much hoping that this does some serious good this time.

All prayers and well wishes are very welcome and I will be back as soon as I can as I will be taking my phone and laptop with me.

Upcoming Surgery

I just found out that I am going back in on the 25th and it’s going to be very invasive.

A six hour procedure. They are going to open up both sides of my groin, take a large hollow spike with a removeable solid center and ram a tunnel through my lower belly so they can run a tube through from one side to the other. They jam through then pull the solid part out and thread the tubing through the hollow metal tube. Then they are going to connect the right side artery to the left side artery just below the blockage that she couldn’t dig out last December.

After that, she is going to take the same instrument and ram another tunnel from the left side down through my left thigh to just above the knee and put another tube in. Then she is going to connect just under the new tube on the left side to the femoral artery just above the knee to bypass the blockage in my left thigh.

All of this is to try and get more blood flow to my lower left leg to try and stop the 24/7 pain I have now in the muscle on the outside of my lower left leg. The one that is like having shin splints in all the time now. It’s been aching 24/7 for some time now and it hurts like a sonofabitch when I have to walk and I mean even ten or fifteen feet at this point.

I have a cane now to lean on because I have to stop and let the blood flow catch up all the damn time. This new shift I am on at work causes me to be on my feet 3 times as much as before because I am working alone

. She figures it’s going to be 2 months minimum to recover and I’m still not 100% healed up from the incision last December. Plus I have this giant wound on my left foot from trying to burn off a corn that is just killing me.

I haven’t had more than 3 hours of sleep a night for over a week at this point and my foot is fucking killing me as I sit here and type.

The surgeon changed up the pain meds I am on to 10 mg of Oxycontin which I am allergic to in higher doses along with 500 mg of Tylenol every six hours and it isn’t doing shit.

I am going to call her up and see about going back to what I was taking before but get a prescription for every 4 hours instead of twice a day because I am sick and tired of hurting all day and all night. If I can get enough in me to get it to let up then keeping it at bay is a lot easier. It’s just getting over that initial hump.

So I am hoping all this works and I can start being relatively pain free as much as possible and hopefully more mobile.

Next month will be 2 fucking years that I have been screwing around with the medical system over this and I am about fucking done.

I have my fingers crossed, this is going to be quite the procedure and all well wishes and prayers are going to be sincerely appreciated.

I haven’t even told all of my family about this yet and am just now putting it on the blog..

I just found out about all of this yesterday afternoon.

So as you can imagine, I’ll be Out Of Service for a couple of days at least right after the surgery, at least 4 or 5 days in the hospital and then bed ridden for a while at home until I heal up enough to be able to stand up and try walking.

I see morphine in my future.