Capping off this year, my son was just admitted to the hospital (he’s been there since about 4:30am when he woke me) for a gut infection—no holes, thankfully!—and getting IV pain meds and antibiotics. Since there is still COVID (Delta, Omicron, fa-la-la-la-la), he had to be tested for that before admittance and they had to give him a chest x-ray in addition to the CT. This poor young man has really been through the wringer! Please, please, let the biologic (Entyvio) work so that he can go into remission. If anyone deserves a break, he does.
Yesterday, Monday, I drove Robert to KU Medical Center to see Dr. Fox. He was referred to KU by Dr. Jake Deister, the doctor who did his full left shoulder replacement (stemming from a fall at work in June of 2019). In January of 2020, he fell and broke the right shoulder, but no surgery was necessary. Last month, November 2021, he fell when he was helping me push Ethan’s car into the driveway and broke the arm just under the implant. We took him to Hiawatha Hospital where they x-rayed and scanned him at least three times, but couldn’t really see what was wrong.
They could tell he had a broken arm, but they couldn’t understand what they were seeing in his shoulder and upper arm. The reason for that become clear as Dr. Fox looked at all the x-rays (including the ones his staff took yesterday). The implant, he said, had come loose. In fact, it had been loose for some time and had broken the bone running parallel to it, causing bone loss and pain for Robert. Six weeks into this poor man’s third broken bone, we find out the break in November might have been a blessing in disguise—showing us why he’d been in pain so long.
I’ve never seen a doctor so furious as Dr. Fox was after examining Robert and viewing the x-rays. He needed several moments of silence as he tried to determine what to say to us. When he told us that the implant had failed, likely due to faulty work by the other surgeon and certainly faulty after care, we were both stunned into silence. We both felt so betrayed and so angry that it was difficult to speak. Once Dr. Fox got himself into control, he said he would take care of Robert. He told us he was concerned that there might be infection around the implant, so Robert is going back to KU on Thursday (with Cathleen this time, I don’t have enough days off right now) to get his shoulder aspirated and speak with the anesthesiologist. Then the fluid needs to be cultured for two weeks and he’ll have a virtual visit with Dr. Fox to discuss the surgery. It’s scheduled for January 11, 2022.
If there is any fortune to be had in this whole mess it is that since the original surgery caused the damage, this will still be covered under worker’s compensation. My boys are not doing well and I am heartbroken for their pain. If I could take it, I would, but that’s not the way the world works.
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