Saturday, June 6, 2009

Yesterday was quite a long day for all of us, so it was with surprise and delight when I sat down to write something, I found that Peter had already posted an update on Mark's surgery.

We were told by one of the doctors that he was first on the list and had to be in the surgery suite by 5:45 a.m. That meant we were all up at five and when Rich and I got to the surgery center Mark was no where around, and neither was anyone else. After wandering around for a while, a nurse told us to go to the 3rd floor ambulatory surgery department. There we finally found a nurse that knew what was going on and she told us that Mark was scheduled for 11:30 a.m and that they decided he would not come there but be picked up and taken directly to the surgery suite at about 10 a.m. At that point, Mark called us from his room and we all decided to try and get a little more sleep.

Finally at about 8:30 we went to Mark's apartment and waited for him to be picked up by the surgery orderly. He went in and we waited in the surgical waiting room. Mark's operation started at 11:30 and he was done about 2:30 p.m. His doctor came and talked to us and told us everything had gone very smoothly and that he would be in recovery for about an hour. Then he was taken to the rehab section of the hospital where he will be for about a week.

As Peter explained they did the Achilles lengthening and a split tendon transfer. He does have an external fixator on his foot and looks a bit like Robocop. We were there this morning when they took the bandages off and it looked amazingly well, with just a little swelling and bruising. They told him he could be up for a little while so we found a leg rest for his wheelchair that would keep his leg elevated and took him outside for a while. It may have been too much in addition to the pain medication because he felt a little queasy and warm, so Rich took him back and got him resettled in his room.

We will try to get him out a little again tomorrow, but he is doing great and managed to get into his chair with just a one leg transfer. We are very encouraged that this procedure will allow him to walk normally.