Subject: Burn Update #2
From: David Rush <kumo@bellsouth.net>
Date: 14 Jul 2002 11:11:09 +0100
Message-ID: <okf65ziliv6.fsf@bellsouth.net>
Hi Y'all, First of all, for those of you who haven't received any of these updates before, I have posted them all on our family web-site at <http://personal.bellsouth.net/rdu/k/u/kumo>. If you follow the site-map to the ZAP! Pages, you'll see them there. Anyway, as I begin to write this, I'm actually having a lot of pain. This has been becoming less and less common, but ... well I'm telling things all out of order. I sent the last update out on June 9, which is just a little over a month ago (today is Sat 13 June, 2002), so I'd better back up a bit. I suppose that it's a good sign that I'm having a harder time remembering the past weeks. I'd have to say that overall, I'm doing noticeably better. There's less to remember. Over the last month I have returned to work, but I have also had more and more difficulties with my burned leg. Actually, my leg troubles began shortly after I sent out the last update, and for a while it wasn't clear that there was an actual problem developing. The condition of my various wounds as they heal is very much like the Irish weather: if you wait a bit, it will change. Most days I have some level of difficulty for at least part of the day. Usually evenings are worse, but mornings can also be difficult. And when things go badly for a few days, they generally get better within a week. So it wasn't until my leg got continually worse over the period of two weeks that I began to worry. The worst came during the week of Judah's birthday (21 June). We actually had three, maybe four, sunny days that week. This year we've been trying really hard to take advantage of them when they come by; it was the rainiest spring on record (and the summer is looking like more of the same). It was going to be a really busy week anyway: we had the annual Irish home-schooler's conference, my first private GP appointment in 20 years, Judah's birthday, an appointment with the company doctor, and a BBQ with some new friends from CORE church in downtown Dublin. On top of that we added a day out flying kites (safely away from all power lines ;). The home-school conference was interesting, as usual. It is important to remember that, in Ireland, the home-school movement is made up almost entirely of people who want to keep their kids away from the church, since the school system is almost entirely run by religious organizations under state supervision. Our appearance at the conference provided some opportunities for low-grade witnessing, but it's difficult to get too overt with a crowd so decidedly anti-christian. But the conference meant that I was basically on my feet for all of a fairly long day. Monday, I was off to meet Dr. Alan Byrne for my first visit to a GP in at least 20 years. He's a good guy with a lot of interest in sports medicine, making him a good resource for my once-and-future hand issues. In fact, he immediately referred me off to a physical therapist who specializes in hands and arms. It was actually a litle bit funny. I talked to him for a total of twenty minutes; he charges me the equivalent of U$40 and tells me to go pay someone else. (Patricia said I got good value for my money. On her first visit to a GP here, she said that the doctor only spent about five minutes and charged the same amount) But there is a noticeable difference here between the private and public health systems: with these private guys I'm getting next-day appointments and more aggressive intervention. The difference is a big topic of political debate over here which I'd previously thought was a bit overblown. It's real enough, but I'm still not so sure how much it matters. Now between driving to the conference and the doctor's office I was starting to develop a disturbing trend of stabbing pains in my burned leg. These would occur mostly when dirving, particularly when maneuvering in parking lots. This trend continued on Tuesday, when we went to the Curragh (the largest public common - not quite a park - in Ireland) to fly kites. Fortunately, I had some sun-block because it was a lovely, sunny day. Believe me, the tanning power of the Irish sun is not all that great, but I have been repeatedly warned about the dangers of sun on my grafts and the donor site. Apparently I am now a high-risk patient for skin cancer. Anyway, there was enough wind so that there wasn't really any running required of me in order to get our kites in the air. At least not until Bethany let go of hers and screamed for Daddy to go running down the hill to get it before it was lost completely. It was pleasant to be able to oblige her. It was not pleasant to feel the spikes being driven into my thigh. But it got better, so I thought of it as just a passing thing. But when I went birthday shopping for Judah the next day I paid for it. I was nearly unable to walk all morning, my knee simply would not hold any weight. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it wasn't terribly comfortable, either. But then again, by the afternoon things were quite a bit better. Since I was going to be seeing a private physical therapist (Roddy McConnell) the following Monday, and was going to be back in to the hospital in a little over two weeks, I continued in my wait and see approach. Sure enough, on Thursday, my leg wasn't too bad, and I managed to sit for most of the day even though we spent it at a water park with another home-schooling family we know (who are Baptist missionaries and *not* members of the Irish home-school network). By Friday, my problem had subsided to a fairly manageable level (walking was OK. Standing and the clutch pedal weren't), so Dr. McMahon (the AOL company doctor) said that she figured that I was in good enough shape generally to return to work. By the Sunday BBQ it was clear that standing had become an issue. However, when I saw Roddy McConnell the follwing Monday we didn't actually spend much time addressing the leg issues, though. He actually put a lot of work into my hand, which left it quite a bit looser than it had been previously. At least temporarily. the next three days were pretty bad for my hand, as well. And I couldn't really tell you if the leg was problematic during that time. I'm finding that the different pains tend to drown out each other so that I can only really pay attention to whatever's at the top of the stack. This is a little bit weird, I know, but I also find that I don;t have enough words to describe how it feels when I go to the various doctors and therapists. This was particularly true when I finally got my PTs to pay some attention to my burned leg. Some of the things they would do didn't exactly 'hurt', but they felt very wrong. One stretch that Joanne Harford, my PT at St. James' hospital, helped me with nearly had me in tears, but it never felt anything like what I would have ever described as pain. This may be a result of nerve damage both from the electricity and the surgery. I also don't feel normal fatigue signals from my leg - one of the PTs was teaching me how to do wall-squats properly. I was supposed to hold the position for fifteen seconds, which wasn't too hard, but about two minutes later my left leg completely collapsed under me, hurting worse than it had for quite a while. "I guess you shouldn't hold it for that long," was the PTs response. The joys of cut-and-paste treatment... Well, I reckon that I've rambled on for rather more than most of you care to hear and I've actually brought the chronology pretty much up to date, so I think I'll sign off now. Again, the good news is that physically I'm doing quite a bit better, but it's also pretty clear that the surgeons weren't kidding when they told me it would take at least a year for everything to settle into their new 'normal' state. Whenever anyone asks me how I'm doing these days, I tell them it's just like the weather...some days good and some days bad, but always changing. Thanks for your continued prayers. As all of the doctors, surgeons, and therapists have observed, I've been coming through this with essentially no complications. They seem to find this surprising to various degrees. I find it encouraging to think that God is watching over this time of healing. david rush -- MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF -- Death, in _Hogfather_