It seems that I owe some of you a few more details regarding my last post---a little clarification if you will.
About two weeks ago Clint got up in the middle of the night and as he walked around the bed I heard an "ouch that hurt". I was half asleep and he asked me to look at the bottom of his foot and tell me if was bleeding, he thought he stepped on something. Still half asleep I check out his foot and said "no, it's fine let's go back to bed." So a few hours later (and a little more coherent) Clint looked at the item he had stepped on---a needle. As he looked more closely he realized that it was only half there and had a blunt end on it. That meant the other half was in his foot. It was Sunday morning and we were getting ready for church. Clint asked if I would try to get it out. Being Nurse Nancy I sterilized some tweezers and a pair of surgical scissors that I had and attempted to extract said need from his foot. I could not see it and decided to stop picking at his foot for fear of hitting something that could cause more harm than good.
I figured we had no choice but to pay a visit to the ER. I asked him if we should get ready for church or head straight to the ER. We both had obligations at church so logically we went to church first. Clint drove himself later to the ER. They took an X-ray and sure enough there was about an inch long needle in his foot. The ER doc did not want to pick at it for fear of hitting a nerve or ligament. So he gave him a Tetanus shot, but him on Antibiotics and referred him to a Podiatrist.
Monday he went to the podiatrist and was told sure enough he would need surgery. An OR was not available until Tuesday. Clint's foot continued to swell and turn red. By the time we took him to the hospital for surgery on Tuesday he could not move his two small toes. The only problem was that his mother was flying in to visit us and her planed landed the exact time he would be in surgery. So David and I dropped him off, saw him in Pre-op and then jetted to the airport. It was an outpatient surgery and said he should be recovered and ready to go home in about 3-4 hours...just enough time to get to the airport and back. When we returned he was still not out of surgery. What should have taken 5 minutes ended up taking 2 hours and 40 minutes. The needle had moved and was up against a ligament.
Clint also has a HIGH tolerance for pain and LOW tolerance for pain meds and anesthesia (or so we found out). He had a hard time waking up and they continued to pump him with morphine (too much in my opinion). As a result he felt rather queasy and was not fit to go home. They transferred him up to the floor because the outpatient surgery center was closing for the night. His blood pressure was about 100/48 and he was as white as a ghost every time he tried to raise the head of his bed. He needed to be able to walk with crutches, eat and use the bathroom before they would discharge him. The admission nurse came into the room to ask him some questions in anticipation of him staying the night. Clint said, "absolutely not, I am going home tonight. No offense to your institution, but I want to go home." He was adamant yet he was pale and unable to sit up. We waited a few hours and by 11:30pm they deemed him ready for discharge. Even though he 'lost his cookies' on the way to the wheel chair they still let him go home...I think he was trying to cover up how miserable he felt for fear they would keep him over night.
He has now been on crutches for over two weeks and I am the official chauffeur to and from work. He just kept saying, "All because of a stupid needle." The irony of it all is that I DON'T EVEN SEW! We still don't know how that needle got there.
