The final procedure for recovery

Within a week of the wreck, the vascular doctors inserted a filter into Meg's inferior vena cava to protect her from blood clots. They attempted to remove the filter Christmas Eve but found a blood clot in the filter during the procedure. Meg was put on blood thinners to dissolve the clot and prevent another one. Being on blood thinners is a BIG drag. Aside from the daily doses of an additional medication, blood thinner patients are required to go in weekly or bi-weekly to have their levels checked. If it's too high or too low, the meds are adjusted to try to keep things in the right zone. Unfortunately, Meg's Wegener's Granulomatosis meds interfered with the Coumadin causing her levels to be all over the place.  And then there was a nose bleed that required a trip to the ER in June. 

They attempted to remove the filter on Wednesday in an in office procedure but weren't successful. Today, Meg went under anesthesia in an outpatient hospital surgery to try again....and they got it out.  

Almost 7 months later, Meg is back to the point she was at when she had the wreck...with a little extra hardware, a few scars, and a completely different perspective on life. She continues to fight  Wegener's Granulomatosis and currently seems to be winning that battle as well.

Week 15

Meghan had another follow up with the orthopedic today. Her elbow and ulna are healing well and she has good range of motion. Her radius (the thumb side), unfortunately, is still not healing but given the amount of damage it sustained, it isn't unexpected at this point. The plate holding it together is doing it's job well.

The skin graft on her leg is looking quite awesome as far as skin grafts go. There are still some spots that are over granulated (healing above skin level) and the entire thing still needs to be protected by bandages for some time. Her donor sight looks like a sunburn and is healing just great.

Week 13

Meghan's been given clearance to do anything except play contact sports and run. The wound on her arm is completely healed and she is adjusting to seeing the scarring now that she doesn't need a bandage.

The bandages on her legs are quite large but only need once per week changing. She'll continue to have bandages over the skin grafting site until it's completely healed and no longer needs protection.

Week 12

Dr. F says that 98% of Meghan's skin graft is successful! Way to go Meghan!!!

Surgery #7

5:30 pm Meghan was grumpy and hungry but it turns out the anesthesia isn't agreeing with her tummy again this time. They are giving her morphine until she can keep a percoset down.

2:00 pm We've been able to visit Meghan twice in recovery. She's awake and in a bit of pain on the donor leg. Waiting for room availability.

12:00 pm Surgery finished. Dr. F said things went very well. She will have a wound V.A.C. for at least a week and a dressing on the donor site. It will take 2 weeks to know for sure if the grafting has been successful.

10:15 am Nurse called to let us know that surgery has started.

9:00 am Meghan's gone back to the surgical suite.

7:00 am Meghan's going thru pre-op.

Week 10 - another update

Meghan had her follow up appointment at the ortho today. Her elbow and radius are healing as expected. Her ulna was the most shattered bone and Dr. W said it's still too early to tell if it's healing correctly.

At PT today, Meghan was allowed to ride the bike for 10 min in addition to her regular therapy for her leg.

Week 10 - update

Meghan's skin graft surgery has been scheduled for Monday, February 9th at 9am!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is very exciting news - Meghan can finally see the finish line on her race to recovery!

It will be a split thickness graft and recovery is expected to be 2-4 weeks. She'll go back on the wound V.A.C. for at least a week and then will have dressing changes until it's healed. She will have to avoid movement that might stretch or injure the graft for 3-4 weeks. The doctor expects her to be hospitalized for only one night after the surgery.

She has pre-op on Thursday and we will switch her from Coumadin to shots for the blood clot. Five days after the surgery she'll go back on the Coumadin and resume monitoring of the blood thinner. She will probably skip a dose of her methotrexate after the surgery but will resume the following week. We are hoping the Wegener's meds won't slow recovery from the grafting.

The size of the area on her leg getting the graft is approximately 24 by 18 centimeters (10 by 7.5 inches). The donor site (other leg possibly) is expected to heal within 1-2 weeks.

Week 10

Meghan saw the plastic surgeon today. He said she's ready for the skin graft - which we already knew. His office will coordinate scheduling surgery "in a few weeks". Meghan isn't very happy with that time frame. He said it could be sooner but he didn't want to set her expectations too high. Scheduling depends on preauthorization by insurance and his surgery schedule availability.


She's no longer using her VAC on her leg and now has a huge bandage that has to be changed at home.

Week 9

Wound healing continues to be heading in a very positive direction. Her arm wound is much, much smaller and her leg wound is nearing the point where it will be ready for the skin graft.

Unfortunately, Wegener's Granulomatosis syptoms are appearing and that has made us very nervous. A blood test came back positive for ANCAs (key indicator of autoimmune issue), her ankle was swollen one day last week, we noticed spots (vasculitis) again on her legs -- though very few, and she has a worrisome cough not unlike everyone else this time of year. Each of these symptoms are not very exciting individually, but knowing the history of how Wegener's developed last May - June we are not taking any chances. Her rheumatologist has started her back on methotrexate, an immunosupressing drug, and he will discuss her medication with the plastic surgeon. We are optimistic that Meghan has made it through the most challenging part of the recovery when taking methotrexate AND avoiding infection would have been impossible. We knew it was likely that she was going to have to restart the treatment. We had hoped it could wait until she was completely recovered.

Week 8

Plastics guy came to the wound change today. He's pleased with her progress. He thinks we'll be scheduling a surgery date for the skin graft after he sees her again in 2 weeks. He said she'll be in the hospital over night after the graft but then she'd be going home with the wound VAC again. For two weeks after the graft, she'll be very limited in what she will be allowed to do so the graft can take. If we heard him correctly, he expects her to be fully recovered from the graft within 4 weeks of surgery.

Week 7 - update

Meghan had wound care and a follow up orthop. appointment on Friday.  The wound care nurse was "giddy" from the improvements in Meghan's leg. The orthopedic surgeon was shocked to see how much strength Meghan has in her quad muscles. For the first time, Meghan heard just how bad her injury was and how grim the original prognosis was. All four quad muscles had been completely severed in the trauma and have appeared to be healing just fine. The surgeon was ecstatic to see how well she can move her leg and told her she could take off the leg brace going forward. Meghan almost jumped off the table in excitement. 

It was a day of good news for Meg.

Week 7

Her fever is gone. Two days per week Meghan has 4-5 doctors appointments. She's still wearing a knee brace and has the wound VAC on her leg. Hospital bills and insurance EOBs are starting to arrive in the mail.  The grand total is easily over $185,000 and rising.

Her left arm

Meghan's OT is very pleased with her progress at improving her ability to move her left fingers, make a fist, give a thumbs up, and turn over her hand. She's been given "permission" to lift up to 5 pounds and she can now touch her head with her left hand. The wound on her arm is healing very nicely and no longer looks like a zombie bite.

Her leg wound

Wound care nurses tell us it looks beautiful. In reality, it looks like rare pot roast and is very difficult to fathom still after 43 days. No infection. Granulated tissue is growing in strong and plastics guy thinks she'll be ready for a skin graft by late January. 

Her ruptured quad

PT is taking things very slowly however Meghan has shown progress.  She can bend her knee 95 degrees - that's up from 50ish after ICU.

Her blood clot

Vasc. surgeons want to keep her on blood thinners for 6 months and check her again at that time.

Her Wegeners

She had blood work done on 1/2 and will have blood work done monthly to monitor whether or not she is in remission. There is no precedent for someone to be in remission after only 5 months of treatment. But, we'll take it.