Jim's Accident

Following Jim’s quad riding accident, his tibia was in over 100 pieces and the surgery to reconstruct it went well. He had 4 hours of surgery on 02-June and was released from the hospital late on 04-June. He wanted to go to his parent’s house at that time since they have a single story and we have a tri-level. Early that first morning on 05-June he woke with a severe bloody nose and difficulty breathing. A second nose bleed started about 2 hours later and lasted about 3 hours. In the middle of that, we had the paramedics come. They discouraged him from going to the ER, and they left.

When the Dr. office opened, I called and told them about his problems breathing and they told us to go to the closest ER immediately as he could die from a possible pulmonary embolism. The paramedics came and took him to the ER where he underwent numerous tests. A CT revealed he had Pulmonary Emboli (blood clots in his lungs). They gave him a blood thinner shot in his stomach right then and admitted us. This time, they kept him in the hospital until 09-June.

He came home to our house this time. I (with help from my neighbors and in-laws) moved all the stuff around as I had originally planned, with a bed in the middle of the living room which is working okay for him. He has to be on a blood thinning regimen for 6 months and the clots should breakup over the next 3 months. He hopes to go back to work next week. He will be in a wheel chair at work to keep the leg elevated through the day and can use a walker to get to areas close by.

PT has started with a machine that moves his leg for 6 hours per day from 0 to 90 degrees. He is still non-weight bearing on that leg for a minimum of 90 days, possibly 4 months. I have attached some pictures I took during our doctor appointment with the surgeon. They pulled the staples out just after teh x-ray was completed. I also took a few shots of the x-rays. You can see jagged edges of bone, that the Dr. says will repair (grow new bone). He mainly concentrated on making the tibia plateau as smooth as possible, and could not get it all smooth below as well. The surgeon is holding an example of the bracket they put in Jim’s leg.