The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men.....

You know what they say about the best laid plans! Well, ours sure went awry. When I last posted we were headed to Idaho to visit friends, then home to Snohomish WA to visit family and stash the motor home and cats.  Then we were headed back east to start the Trans America Trail (TAT).

 Silly Wayne, how can you ride the TAT if you go and break your leg???

Yes, Wayne went out riding one day with JD and Tommy. Usually the boys come back before 5 but that day it was 6:30 when Wayne rode up to our friends house. Now usually Wayne goes to our rig first, takes a shower then rides his bicycle down to JD's place.  So I thought some one had a broken bike. So I ask him "Who's bike is broke?"  He answered "I broke my leg" What!!??!!

 Note the blue straps around his right leg and the tree branches used as a splint!!

 It was 5 hours from when he broke it until he arrived back at JD's house. JD and Tommy had to cut a trail up the hill to where they thought he could safely get back on his bike and ride the 21 miles back to camp. They made his splint and a crutch for him to use as the two of them helped Wayne hop on one leg UP this hill. Keep in mind that at 59 Wayne was the youngest in this crowd. The other two are 68 and 70. I think they both went to bed early that night. Wayne felt so bad that they had to work that hard in his behalf...

As one friend noted, Wayne is smiling but ElRae looks horrified...

So at 7 PM I loaded Wayne into our newest purchase (a 2006 Ford Focus) and headed to the ER in Boise. It was about 8:30 when we arrived to a packed ER. The staff was wonderful, removing all his gear without having to cut any of it off.  Made Wayne happy, he had just bought those Gaerne boots and Klim pants aren't cheep either.  The nurses kept asking, does that hurt Mr. Andersen? But amazingly enough he had no pain after the initial break and had only had 5 Advil all day!

Here is the break, but it doesn't show the extent of the damage. It was explained to us that he exploded the tibial plateau, so there were many little pieces floating around. Wayne spent 2 nights at St Alphonsus Hospital and while there he was given the option of having an exterior frame (also called an X-fixator or Xfix) bolted into the bone or a soft brace. Which would you pick?

Wayne chose the brace, which turned out to be the wrong answer, but our question was why was he even given the choice? Someone was going to put one on at some point so we should have done it then. We also had to decide where to have the surgery and do the rehab.  As it was going to be at least 3 months we decided to go with our old doc back home so calls were made and we then had a plan.  Our friend John arrived at the Boise Airport on Friday to drive the Beast and Toad because I had to drive the new little car. We had an appointment with the surgeon on Monday in Edmonds Washington.

Wayne traveled home on the couch, trying to control some of the swelling

John set us up in his yard in Monroe but the Toad (the trailer with the bikes) had to live at a different friends house. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and waited for Monday to see the Doc.

This is what they found when they took off the bandages. Wayne had developed fracture blisters right away, but the St Alphonsus staff never indicated a concern or told me to change the bandages.  So he developed a raging infection.

Our doctor took a look at the infection and at the CT scan which showed the severity of the break and arranged for us to be pre-admitted into the ER at Harbor View Trauma Center in Seattle. So I loaded him back in the car and off we went to downtown Seattle, never a place I want to be and he would end up staying 14 days! Have you heard about how bad the traffic is in Seattle!!! It is awful and I would be staying 35 miles away.  Sometimes it took an hour, sometimes 2 just to get there.

We got to Harbor View and once they had Wayne in the ER a whole parade of doctors came to visit. There were the ER docs, representatives of his 12 doctor surgery team. (WTH??? 12 docs on a team?) and then the looky loos. I swear someone would go out to the nurses station and say "Have you seen that patient with the infected leg?  You should see this!" Staff was coming and going in groups of 3 or 4 to look at his leg. They put him on this really strong antibiotic Vancomycin, which it turns out he is allergic to.  He immediately developed what is called Red Man Syndrome which made his face and upper body get red and hot.  It also creates problems with the injection site, so they had to move the IV site to a different vein almost everyday. They also had to monitor his kidney function as that is often effected. But the good news is he didn't loose his leg!  The bad news was that the surgeons wanted to get him into a Xfix as soon as poosible to keep the joint open.  But it was 5 days before the infection was under control enough that they would consider breaking the skin to install the Xfix.

 Here is the external frame or Xfix. It was attached to the bone in 4 places and allowed the doc's to create the space needed to fix the break.

 It looks worse that it was, he really couldn't feel the pins.  He would pick his leg up and move it around with the frame.

 The swelling took another 7 days to go down enough to do the surgery. They made him stay in the hospital during that time because they were still giving him Vancomycin twice a day. Finally his surgery was approved and when he was done he just had this brace.

 This view shows 12 screws, but we have seen a view that showed 14, so who knows how many are actually in there.

 A couple of days on the Repetitive Motion machine to make sure he could bend his knee at least 90 degrees and then he was ready to go home! Or at least to our daughter Becca's house.

After spending a total of 3 weeks flat on his back, Wayne wanted to be up and around but his body was not srtong enough. We began working his upper body and good leg with weights and exercises to help him gain enough strength to use his crutches.

 When the sun came out, so did Wayne

 He missed his cats so I would take him over to where the coach was parked so he could see his buddy.  We had some logistical issues (sewer dump and satellite TV reception) that had to be solved, but once he was stong enough to get in and out of the coach, we moved back into our own house and the real rehab began.

 Out come the stitches!!!

 Looking good enough to start PT but too soon to go into the pool and swim.  It would be another 4 weeks before they would allow that.

 Once PT started Wayne was working on keeping the knee limber so we rigged up a stationary bike for him to ride. On the 4th of September the doc's released him to START putting weight on that leg.  It would take him 4 weeks to completely loose the crutches.

So now it is the middle of October and we have decided that the weather in the Puget Sound area is getting too cold and too wet for us.  We are out of here! Although Wayne likes to swim at the Snohomish Pool 3 times a week, it is time for us to head south. We will take our time, driving only as long as he can stand to have his leg hang down. Good thing we have many stops to make along the way.  Friends and shops and sights to see.  We plan to spend a couple of days in Hillsboro at Lyon's house, drop by the Monaco Service center for some parts, visit friends in Crooked River Ranch, stop in Reno to pick up some of that wonderful sausage and maybe hit a few hot springs along the way.  Our next major stop is Quartzsite AZ where today it will be 90 and sunny!  I'm ready!