Many of you know that David had surgery a couple of weeks ago to patch a wound on his right leg that wasn’t cooperating — it just wouldn’t heal on its own.
Because of his past cancer diagnosis in that same leg, we get concerned when a wound stays open for too long. So, we scheduled surgery for the doctor to remove the wound, which was about the size of your thumb. They took a patch of healthy skin from David’s right ankle to place over the wound. They sent the wound off to the pathology lab.
Then we went home.
Last Monday, we went back to Chicago for the nurses at the Burn Clinic to take down all the dressings and were able to get our first peek at everything since his surgery. Things looked ok that day.
The best news of all was that the pathology results came back CANCER-FREE!
We can breathe again.
Then we went home.
David’s a great patient. He does a great job of managing his pain. He makes the daily choice to be positive and to find laughter, even when he’s going stir-crazy. He’s cautious when the healing process is in its early stages.
For the past two weeks he’s been prisoner to his leather recliner in our family room, with his leg elevated. He used the wheelchair for 10 days after surgery, to give his leg time to heal. We’ve watched more movies than we should admit — some much better than others!
Unfortunately, by the end of last week, the skin graft failed to “take;” which means the healthy skin they took from David’s ankle and placed on his wound didn’t stick, so it’s dying. When it does this, it means the wound is left open again. Only now, instead of being the size of your thumb, it’s the size of a baseball, because during surgery they had to take a bigger piece of tissue than the actual wound itself.
We’re not sure what this means for our future at this time. We don’t know if this happened because of an infection in his leg, or simply because it just didn’t work this time.
We head back to Chicago today for another check-up at the Burn Clinic. They might say to wait and see what happens. There’s a chance that some of the skin cells adhered and will regenerate more over time that will allow the wound to heal. Another possibility is that the doctor will want to schedule another surgery to try to patch this area again.
We’re not sure at this time, but we will keep you updated when we know more.
We’d appreciate your prayers for healing, for continued patience for both of us, for wisdom to know what to do next, for our ability to remember that God is in control of this, and for us to remember to laugh even when things don’t go as we had hoped or planned. Pray that David won’t be discouraged.
When we stop to think about it, we’ve been very blessed over the years. David has had upwards of 40 surgeries in the past 16 years and there’s only been a handful of grafts that haven’t worked. We’ve gotten accustomed to surgeries just going like clockwork. This makes us stop and think about the many miracles we’ve had along the way. We’re truly grateful.
We’ll get through this little bump in the road.
Thanks in advance.
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