What a day. Chelsea and I had a very nice walk, though my knee and feet are still sore from all the walking at Irishfest yesterday. We didn't see any other walkers out there this morning. That is a bit unusual.

I went to bible study at 9AM as usual. There were 5 of us there this morning. We are a strange little group but keep plugging along. We had a lot of good discussions and I collected some more people to pray fro Dick this afternoon when we had our appointment with the Orthapedic surgeon, Dr. Fehrman. Ione was able to tell me that a mutual friend had Dr. Fehrman operate on him and was very pleased with him. That is always reassuring.

Then I went over to Mother's house. I took her some scones and Cauldron Cakes. Didn't have any meals for her as we did not really eat at home during the weekend. But she will enjoy the breads.

When I got home I had time to hook Dick up for his second Sequential Compression before I went to Writers Club. I decided to go because it is only an hour and Dick needed to rest some more anyway. When I got home, he was sleeping. When he got up, I went down for an hour before we had to go to see Dr. Fehrman. Boy Did I Sleep!

We had to wait until almost 5PM to see him. Our appointment was for 4:30PM but they were way behind. Dr. Fehrman seems very nice. He showed us the MRI and what the infection looks like. It is on the side of the bone in the toe and all the way down the bone on that side of the foot. He had three treatments. 1. Pump it full of antibiotics. But with Dick's lack of circulation, this is not a very practical solution. 2. They could remove or scrape off the part of the bone that appears infected. There is always a chance that they can't get it all AND this would not solve the problem of the healing wound. OR 3. They can remove the little toe and the adjoining bone. This would insure that the infected bone is gone and maybe give him the ability to pull the flesh together which would mean that instead of a gaping hole of a wound, there would be basically a surgical scar which would heal much easier. We are opting for three. Dr. Fehrman is coordinating with Dr. Siddique and Dr. Moreno to see about circulation solutions as we do have that procedure for another stent scheduled with Dr. Siddique. They will get back to us in a day or two with arrangements. Thanks for all the prayers, I will keep you informed. We are rather relieved because when we heard "bone infection" we got all kinds of REALLY bad thoughts and this is the least of them.

Tonight was exciting. I cleaned the wounds and put the dry dressing on his left foot. Then I called Mom to report on what had happened and suddenly Dick was calling because the left foot was bleeding rather profusely and there were blood spots all over the carpet. I told Mom I'd call her back and recleaned and dressed the wound with a compression patch and a more protective seal. Then I cleaned the carpet. Richard called from Madison in the middle of that. We were glad of that. He talked to Dick and found out what was happening before the blog even. Quite a coup. They are well and I am happy he called and had a good talk with Dick.

Now things are quiet and it is after 9PM and I am very tired and going to go to bed. Tomorrow the only thing scheduled is lunch with a friend. I will pick up corn for our dinner. With me being gone, we did not have our usual weekend meal of corn and tomatoes.
Have to catch up.

Take care. I love you all.

Mary.


"good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience - this is the ideal live." Mark Twain