MORNING UPDATE TODAY:
Been 5 days since I last wrote and frankly, been hard to know what to write and we’ve been exhausted. And it sounds ridiculous to even write that…that I’m exhausted, when Carson is the one dealing.
That said, we’ve gotten clarity to the moment. It took a few days post-surgery last Wednesday to understand what we were dealing with, what questions we needed to ponder and articulate to the medical team, what conditions Carson was dealing with and what questions we needed answered.
For the previous two weeks, Carson dealt with post knee dislocation pain from the MRI team, severe pain from the infection and then surgery to resolve both, including getting him out of the major splint they put him in the week before.
The byproduct of that was two things. First, we needed to let the meds really kick in, resolve the infection and eliminate that pain. It appears that is resolved and the infection was not in the bone. Second, for Carson to figure out how to move again, now that he was out of the X-fix, no longer has the big splint on his leg and was now in a brace that was supposed to do the trick to stabilize the knee, but it wasn’t working.
So, we realized just three days ago what the issue was and that was also two things.
Carson has so much instability in his knee that it’s extremely painful for him to move around and in particular have his leg hang vertically, because there is very little soft tissue structure holding the bottom of his leg to the top of his leg. That extreme pain has limited any opportunity for rehab, which means he laid in a bed for another two weeks after the dislocation and infection. So, he hasn’t been able to do PT/OT much at all, which means they are worried about whether he can go to Rehab at all.
Ideally, he would get the knee surgery right away to create the stability he needs in order to begin rehab. But because of the infection, they cannot perform surgery for at least another two weeks. Rock, meet hard place.
So, they have been talking about a skilled nursing facility, which sounds terrible for so many reasons I won’t explain here. Or, going home. Which sounds insane given his current condition.
So, they are not sure he can go to Rehab, don’t want skilled nursing facility, can’t yet have surgery, can’t stay in Trauma too much longer…everyone is looking at each other wondering what they do. It’s created some anxiety for Carson and in us for him, not knowing the next steps. We’ve been so good at seeing big picture but focusing on today, tomorrow, next 5 days. Now, we don’t even know what tomorrow looks like.
AFTERNOON UPDATE
Carson was able to get in a wheelchair today for the first time in 15 days. I can’t even tell you what a change it was for him to be able to move. When I went back into the room, he was refusing pain meds, had me tie a rope onto his brace so he could pick up his own leg, and was talking about skipping Rehab completely and just going home. He wants to go home so badly! OK, he wants to be at school so badly, he wants to be out of the hospital so badly, he’ll take home. ;).
For a couple reasons, he isn’t quite ready for home. He’s still wheelchair bound, not quite strong enough to get in and out of the house, would be transporting to and from PT/OT in and out of cars every day, still making changes to the home to accommodate his needs, etc. etc. And he needs to be strong enough ideally to get on crutches, which I think will happen pretty quickly now. So, we are thinking he heads to Rehab over the next couple days. What a transformation!
Tomorrow is 2 months post the accident…I hope to be writing with continued big progress.
Next Friday, October 2nd, is Carson’s 19th bday. Not sure what we are doing yet to help him celebrate, hopefully coming home THAT DAY. We are hoping to get a bunch of his friends and classmates on a zoom call to celebrate with him, even if just for a few minutes.
I think by next Friday, there may be some big things to celebrate.
We are crossing our fingers, toes, legs, arms and holding our breath.
Love to all.
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