Day 36: Still in the Hospital

Today is my brother's 36th day at the Hospital. He had his 2nd operation last February 23 and his 3rd operation last March 10. We're still waiting for the doctor's advise if he still needs to undergo 4th and 5th operation. As of today, he's been taking a lot of vitamins and antibiotics because doctor said that there's a "light growth of staphylococcis aureus infection". He also have 2 dextrose on his left arm. Hubby and I will visit him this Saturday and talk to his doctor. Hope everything will turn out well...

Day 6: Miracle Happened!

February 16:

Motto: Never give up! After our visit to Tagaytay, I called up my medical friends, send them the Xray pictures. Hubby was helping me too. He sent some pictures to their resident doctor, Dr. Calado, told him that the doctors in Olongapo was planning to fuse Carl's leg. He told my hubby to advise the doctor not to fuse the leg/limb and also advised him to consider Ilisarov procedure.

Ilisarov procedure (Wikipedia) is used in surgiforcal procedures to lengten and reshape the limb bones; treat complex and/or open bone fractures; and in cases of infected non-unions of bones that are not amenable with other techniques."

Dr. Calado told hubby to tell my brother's Orthopedic doctor not to fuse the limb. He even told hubby that if they cannot do that in Olongapo then we have to send my brother here in Manila (PGH). He said that PGH has expertise in Ilisarov procedure. So when I heard about that, I googgled it and found 134,000 results. I gatheres some data and then called up carl's doctor and told him not to amputate the leg. Maybe he can consider that procedure. I kept on calling him and texting him from 0530H until he called me at 1430H the same day. Guess what? He talked so differently. He said he will not do bone fusion anymore, that there still hope that he can bend his legs and be functional again in the future. Whew!!! MIRACLES DO HAPPEN (?) or if you don't know anything about the procedure, just say YES to whatever the doctor tells you because you're staying at the ward??? But I do believe MIRACLES DO HAPPEN... Just pray...

4th Day: One on one talk with God

February 15, 2010

We decided to go to Pink Sisters in Tagaytay to seek help (45 mins. away from our place). It has been tested, almost all my wishes/petition came true with the help of the sisters. I need miracles.

We attended the afternoon mass at 430pm. After the mass, I prayed the rosary and then had a little talk with our Lord. It was mixed emotions... I felt pity with my brother, I'm loosing hope, I missed my mom... I don't know what to do. I am the only family of Carl that can help him. I have a lot of questions running thru my mind but I never dared to question Him. Never dared to test my faith. The only thing that I told HIM was: "Whatever your plans may be, I will leave it all up to You."

3rd day at the Hospital: Very bad and sad news!

February 13, 2010, Saturday:

It was exactly 8 o'clock in the morning while my brother was having his breakfast, he was very excited in telling us that he had a chance to walk again normally when his surgeon arrived and talked to us (me and my hubby) privately. Because Carl was so positive about his operations, we were also excited to hear the good news from his doctor but unfortunately has a different side of the story. We first spoke to the him and he showed us the x-ray result of my brother. He even showed us the actual picture when my brother arrived at the emergency room. It was not only broken but crashed bones. The bones were scattered in the area where they met the accident. A lot of blood was lost and he said that was my brother's. Have you seen a leg without a knee? That's how it looks like or even worse. I can't exactly describe it but it was yulky! I almost fell and threw up.

The next part was when his Ortho came and talked to us too. He said, the good news is that they will not amputate the leg anymore because the nerves are still functional. He said there are 5 signs to consider before the decide to amputate the leg: the bone or the knee cap, veins (which was cut off too due to injury), the patella, the skin and the tissue that no longer has an adequate blood supply. But, the nerves are still functional so they decided to just fuse it (leg-knee fusion).

For those of us who are not familiar with that term, in lay man's term (as I understood) is that they are going to remove the knee joint by connecting the leg bones and thigh bones (?). The left leg will be smaller than the right leg and it is a permanent procedure. You could not bend it anymore...as long as you live. As you can see at the X-ray picture, you cannot detect where the knee joint anymore. At first, I was convinced that it was the best way instead of amputating it. So... it's only me who can tell that news to my brother.

Carl and I talked... It's hard for me to give advise because I myself was not convinced that I cannot anymore bend my legs... I even tried walking without bending my knees. It's hard... I prayed before I talked to him. I told him that we are still fortunate that the doctors have decided not to amputate the leg anymore but.... (silence) they will have to fuse it. He was in tears. I cannot hide anymore how sorry I was while talking to him, i burst into tears. I hugged him and told him that everything will be alright just pray. Prayer is the most powerful than anything else in the world. I told my brother that I will never leave him whatever happens. I will always be by his side. I will do anything for him... it was a long silence... I knew he was very depressed. He doesn't want to eat anymore but when I told him that God will never give us his cross that we can't carry...

First Operation

February 12, 2010:

First operation. His orthopaedic doctor decided to do the first operation after the accident becauase they need to clean up the wound and try to save the leg and not to amputate it. It took 2 hours to put an implant called external fixator device. External fixation (from Wikipedia) is a surgical treatment used to set bone fractures in which a cast would not allow proper alignment of the fracture. In this kind of reduction, holes are drilled into uninjured areas of bones around the fracture and special bolts or wires are screwed into the holes.

We haven't had the chance to talk to the Orthopaedic Doctor after the surgery.

2nd day at the hospital: Disaster!

February 11, 2010:

I didn't get enough sleep because I was still worried about my brother. My hubby was very supportive of me that he went to Olongapo with me to visit and support my brother. We arrived there early in the morning and was so scared and as if there were butterflies on my stomach and when I was infront of the James Gordon Hospital, I am afraid to go inside, afraid of what I am going to see. With the help of hubby, I finally reached the Orthopaedic Ward where he lies, sleeping.

I felt very sad and depressed on what happened to him. His face and body was full of scars and bruises, and his left leg was still bleeding eventhough it was wrapped in a bandage. The bed sheets and the hospital dress has still blood stains from the accident. The worst part was that nobody's there, not one relative, even my father, wasn't there to support him. The only person who was on his side since the hospital called my father was a friend/neighbor. My heart melted and was about to burst into tears when suddenly he woke up... I hugged him never ask anything at first. I can feel the pain that he was suffering. He knows that whenever he did anything wrong, my mouth won't stop talking like an M-16 armalite, but this time it's different. It happened and it will never be the same again.

After the short silence, Anne, his friend told me that he needed 8 bags of type B blood immediately. She said that the doctors couldn't perform the 1st operation because his hemoglobin was too low. I don't know what to do. Never in my life that I have donated blood because I'm anemic. Hubby was the one who volunteered first though his blood type is A+ and of course, I am the sister so I also went there to donate (but I'm Type O). We went to the blood bank immediately but unfortunately, they cannot accept it in exchange with the type B blood (which you have to pay Php1,500 even if you have a donor) because there was no Type B blood available. I have no choice but to call up some of my friends. One particular person was Norie Joe. He was the one who contacted our batchmates. After an hour, hubby and I went to meet them at the mall where we found Jordan Arenas who was willing to donate his Type B blood for the very first time. I was surprised and very thankful because we have never been that close when we were in Highschool. And would like to thank Ariel Go for sending 4 more people to donate blood (but unfortunately they had restrictions.. some are drunk, others have tatoo so the blood bank rejected them) but atleast Ariel was there and was trying to help. And of course Norie Joe who was the one who called all of them at that time. 3 from Carl's friend also donated blood. We collected 5 plus we bought 3 from the Red Cross.

Upon completing the blood bags which took us a whole day, a surgeon talked to us that they needed to put a fixature to my brother's leg. He told us that that it is possible for them to amputate my brother's leg and we will be needing a big amount of money for the 5 operations. He showed us the video and the picture. It was a disaster. I cried but didn't told my brother yet because he was full of hopes... that everything will be back to normal. False hopes (?) I keep on praying and helping myself to be brave infront of him. He was still in pain... They scheduled the first operation on a Saturday...