It’s been two months and one day since my husband’s car accident, which required emergency surgery on his shattered heel (calcaneal bone) and a follow-up debridement surgery to remove dead tissue and install a wound vac. Now we are looking at a third surgery next week to remove hardware and get the wound closed.
The wound vac has done a great job closing the gaping hole in the side of David’s foot, but it has reached a point where the tissue just won’t grow any further over the hardware. The podiatrist (let’s call him Dr. Foot) wants the wound closed pronto. He’s scared to death of infection–and he’s probably sick of us. So, last week he sent us to a consult with a plastic surgeon (Dr. Botox), who was very adamant that we try to avoid the skin graft, as it would not be the easy-peasy flap incision Dr. Foot believed possible but would instead require a deep tissue transplant from David’s stomach or inner thigh and result in a 10-day downtown hospital stay with no guarantee that the graft would even be successful, as far removed from the heart as the wound is. Ouch–that was quite a slap at Dr. Foot.
Removing the hardware now that the bone is basically healed and re-installing the wound vac is the conservative approach encouraged by Dr. Botox–and one we are eagerly backing. So, Dr. Foot’s office has scheduled the procedure for next Tuesday. In the meantime, David is recovering from a nasty flu bug and coming off his opiate-based pain meds.
While the visit to Dr. Botox seemed like a step backward, at least I now have pamphlets for the start of a Nip & Tuck wish list!