Dad's Arm

I mentioned in the Christmas post that Dad was in the hospital for the first 4 days of our trip to Colorado. It turns out he had a ruptured bursae sac that became infected. For a couple of days it was a little scary, because we weren't sure if the infection was MRSA or a regular staph infection. Praise the Lord it was just a staph infection (not that it made it any easier on my Dad).

This is a picture of what it looked like the day we arrived.

(Sunday - which was day 5 of his arm slowly getting bigger and redder, day 2 in the hospital)

While he was in the hospital, they had him on some pretty heavy antibiotics and drained it daily. That was his favorite part. :-) (that was sarcasm!) After spending 4 days in the hospital, they released him to come home, so he was home for Christmas! He still had to go back daily to have it drained, and was on an oral antibiotic. He was still in quite a bit of pain - which I'm sure the night I knocked it with the back of my chair didn't help at all. They referred him to an orthopedic surgeon to have the bursae sac looked at to determine if surgery was needed.

The orthopedic surgeon who repaired his ruptured biceps tendon a while back, and has done all of my Mom's shoulder and knee surgeries is the team surgeon for the Colorado Avalanche. Dan flew back to Texas that morning, so I went with my parents to drop him off, then to Dad's appointment. While there, Dr. Parker wanted to try an in-office procedure that would clean out the bursae sac and allow healthy tissue to reform. In 80% of patients, this takes care of it, so surgery is not needed. Below are the pictures from the procedure - be warned, they are cool (I think), but a bit graphic! :-)

He started by making about a 2 inch incision over the bursae sac to drain everything out and clean it up. He then swabbed out the area with about 10 huge cotton swabs (no more than 2 at a time) and a peroxide-type solution. Dad had blood and all the bubbly peroxide junk rolling down his arm - it was gross, but cool. Dr. Parker then packed the area with about 18 inches of a 1/2 or so wide gauze tape. Dad was supposed to keep this tape in for 2 days, then take out about an inch and a half each day until it was all out.

Dr. Parker making the incision.

Swabbing out the area with peroxide.

Starting to stuff the tape in.

More stuffing.

It looked pretty painful, and my Dad was in a lot of pain over the next few days. I felt so bad for him! The good news is he went back a week later and had all of the tape removed. It is healing up, and could take up to a month to completely heal over. Praise God that he didn't have to have surgery!! Still praying that it will continue to heal up completely!