For Part 1, go here.
So, Tommy almost made me pass out, driving like a maniac to the hospital. On the way there, I decided I needed to get the prayer warriors started, so I called the first name in my phone from our Grace Emmaus Community, which happened to be a fella from Pineville, which is 45 miles away & takes almost an hour to drive to. Seriously? I told him I'd almost cut my foot off, which he apparently heard as "I just cut my foot off." but he started the prayer chain off. *phew!*
Once we made it to the ER, Tommy loaded me into a wheelchair & left the truck running with the passenger door standing open, parked right in front of the ER door. He proceeded to make sure they KNEW I was there and I was BUH-LEED-ING!!
When I said my foot had been run over by a riding mower, they all started moving at a much faster clip! I was taken back, past triage & straight into a room. They pulled the towels off my foot & all grimaced. Yeah, it's gross, people!! A LAWN MOWER RAN OVER IT!!
Corey & Mel got there soon after they'd put me in the ER room. People were coming in & out, looking & grimacing. Sheesh. They asked how long was I unconscious. I wasn't. They were shocked. And so far, no crying either. Yes, I AM amazed at myself!! LOL!
It was about 4 hours before they got all the preliminary stuff done that hospitals always take so long to do and finally sent a guy in to clean the cut up so it could be thoroughly examined. The x-ray was good, no broken bones, it was fairly clean & was all okay that Corey had used bottled water to irrigate it & wash out the grass. Once they finally got it cleaned, they could see bone. Nothing shattered or anything, but my heel bone was exposed.
*shudder*
Yes, by this time they had given me a shot of Morphine & put in an IV, thank God!
They put me in a room & let me know the surgeon would be in to look at it first thing. They kept saying it would need a tissue graft. Tommy had asked almost first thing if they needed the part that was cut off, but they said no. Since there were essentially no nerves or muscle there, it wouldn't be beneficial to try sewing it back on.
Next day we saw the surgeon, an orthopedic doc, who said he needed to do a surgery to clear away the too-damaged tissue. I don't remember anything about that, but it hurt like the dickens once I came to. Urgh!
The doc said he thought it would only need a skin graft in about 6 weeks and that I probably wouldn't be able to walk for around 6 months. Egads!! They wanted to keep me for a few days to make sure no infection would set up, and so there I stayed.
I had tons of sweet visitors. It was a very humbling experience seeing people actually show up to let me know they were praying for me. God's SO good!
That night was horrible, though. My blood pressure started dropping and so that was the end of the Morphine. They tried Vicodin next, but the blood pressure was just too low, even for that, so I spent that night in agony. Horrendous pain with NOTHING to ease it.
Did I mention it was horrible?
By the early morning, they tried the Vicodin again & my pressure seemed to level out. I was on a constant saline drip to hydrate me, but apparently it didn't work to stabilize my bp til that next day. Thank God, though, and I was eventually able to use the Morphine again.
And again I say, THANK GOD!!!
The third day, they brought in this funky walker for me to try. It was bright fushia with zebra stripes, y'all. I was not allowed to even touch my toes (of the injured foot) to the floor and lemme tell ya, using one of those blasted things is harder than it looks!!
They made me take a very short walk in the hall & I was soon worn out!! Having to lift my entire weight w/just my wrists was awful! I don't have the strongest wrists already! They were keeping a wet-to-dry pack on my heel all this time, changing it daily. Each time they took the gauze off, it would pull bits of tissue off and make it bleed. Doc said that's what they needed it to do, to stay open & fresh so that the tissue would start regenerating.
It sounded crazy to us. We really didn't dream that the concave wound would build back up much. I imagined a deep sunken scraggly area on my foot for the rest of my life.
Boy, was I (mostly) wrong....
Stay tuned. Part 3 is coming!
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