My situation has greatly improved but not without getting much worse.
I was nearing a 50/50 chance of losing the foot due to infection. The foot has bad circulation anyway but I had a two week lapse in time of not being under a doctors care. Things can get bad quick. The 10 screws and the plate gave this infection a gathering place to grow and multiply becasue it is a "foreign body" and not able to fight infection like healthy tissue can. Thankfully, I managed to land in the care of Sr. level surgeons at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. I had a Foot/Ankle surgeon, microvascular surgeon and a plastic surgeon all working on me.
Shortly after I posted the picture from the previous Post Titled "Crash Pix", is when my 3 week stay in the hospital began. They performed a total of 4 operations. 3 of which were to remove the screws/plate and remove dead tissue thus removing as much of the infection as possible. Consequently, the hole in my foot grew substantially. The fourth operation took muscle from my back and transplanted it into the "hole". This is where the vascular and plastics surgeons did their magic.
AS you can see in the photo, the transplanted muscle mass measures 9" long, 3" wide and stood about 3" tall off the surface of my ankle area. Not only did this transplant fill the hole that was left from the infection, but it had to continue up my leg to the SHIN area where they spliced into a large blood vessel. There is a red tube in my foot which was draining fluid as well as a mini-microphone attached to the main blood vessel which listened to the pulse. (white wires in photo) The success of the tissue transplant was critical for 72 hours after surgery.
Thankfully I did not smoke and was in otherwise good health. Most people down get as lucky and have their first transplant surgery take. Evidently, smoking does much more harm than just baking your lungs 70 years from now, it kills small blood vessels today. So for those smokers out there, don't damage your feet. The foot has poor blood circulation anyway much less killing your smaller blood vessels by smoking.
Anyway, I really appeciate your messages and thoughts. My foot looks much better now. This photo is about a month old. The size has gradually reduced. Only about 2" tall now. Still 9" long and 3" wide. I've started Hydro-therepy and have about 30% skin coverage. It will be 10-12 months before my foot is back to normal but it will go back to normal. Further bone surgery may be necessary, we don't know. For right now, it was a matter of healing the tissue around the foot. I'm lucky that the infection didn't spread to the tendons or the Achilles tendon, otherwise they would have had to been cut out. So my ankle is in great shape. My heel is what is uncertain.
I sold my M1 the very first day I had it on MTBreview.com. That was cool and helpful. I am staying with my G-parents in Ft.Worth. All my stuff is in storage. I should be able to start work in a month. I need to cause I'm running out of stuff to sell to pay the bills.
Again, thanks for your thoughts and prayers.
Sincerly,
Joel Hester
I was nearing a 50/50 chance of losing the foot due to infection. The foot has bad circulation anyway but I had a two week lapse in time of not being under a doctors care. Things can get bad quick. The 10 screws and the plate gave this infection a gathering place to grow and multiply becasue it is a "foreign body" and not able to fight infection like healthy tissue can. Thankfully, I managed to land in the care of Sr. level surgeons at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. I had a Foot/Ankle surgeon, microvascular surgeon and a plastic surgeon all working on me.
Shortly after I posted the picture from the previous Post Titled "Crash Pix", is when my 3 week stay in the hospital began. They performed a total of 4 operations. 3 of which were to remove the screws/plate and remove dead tissue thus removing as much of the infection as possible. Consequently, the hole in my foot grew substantially. The fourth operation took muscle from my back and transplanted it into the "hole". This is where the vascular and plastics surgeons did their magic.
AS you can see in the photo, the transplanted muscle mass measures 9" long, 3" wide and stood about 3" tall off the surface of my ankle area. Not only did this transplant fill the hole that was left from the infection, but it had to continue up my leg to the SHIN area where they spliced into a large blood vessel. There is a red tube in my foot which was draining fluid as well as a mini-microphone attached to the main blood vessel which listened to the pulse. (white wires in photo) The success of the tissue transplant was critical for 72 hours after surgery.
Thankfully I did not smoke and was in otherwise good health. Most people down get as lucky and have their first transplant surgery take. Evidently, smoking does much more harm than just baking your lungs 70 years from now, it kills small blood vessels today. So for those smokers out there, don't damage your feet. The foot has poor blood circulation anyway much less killing your smaller blood vessels by smoking.
Anyway, I really appeciate your messages and thoughts. My foot looks much better now. This photo is about a month old. The size has gradually reduced. Only about 2" tall now. Still 9" long and 3" wide. I've started Hydro-therepy and have about 30% skin coverage. It will be 10-12 months before my foot is back to normal but it will go back to normal. Further bone surgery may be necessary, we don't know. For right now, it was a matter of healing the tissue around the foot. I'm lucky that the infection didn't spread to the tendons or the Achilles tendon, otherwise they would have had to been cut out. So my ankle is in great shape. My heel is what is uncertain.
I sold my M1 the very first day I had it on MTBreview.com. That was cool and helpful. I am staying with my G-parents in Ft.Worth. All my stuff is in storage. I should be able to start work in a month. I need to cause I'm running out of stuff to sell to pay the bills.
Again, thanks for your thoughts and prayers.
Sincerly,
Joel Hester
