Our Two Left Feet

There has been a long silence here at TheFamilyIsrael blogspot.
I am going to blame it on one thing...(or technically two)...

OUR TWO LEFT FEET!!!

This post has nothing to do with the fact that we can't dance.  Well, I can't...Trey could and did back in the day when he was not attached to me and my rhythmically challenged self.

This post is about being old and and having the ailments to prove it.

We have in the last month each been diagnosed with conditions in our left feet that usually affect the elderly.

Trey has gout...what's that you ask?  Well, here is a link to fill you in...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gout 
It seems this is a disease that traditionally affects elderly rich men who consume lots of alcohol.
We are not rich and Trey doesn't consume any alcohol...so, that just leaves us the "old" part.  After a crazy week of having strep throat and going to help with earthquake relief for a couple of days he woke up on the Saturday morning (11/13) with severe pain in his left big toe.

He has been in contact with a doctor in the states and has been to the doctor here and had some blood work done.  He has a bag of frozen veggies he puts on it, takes some medicine for the pain, puts it up when ever he can, and drinks lots of some sort of special water the doctors here have arthritic patients drink.  Brooke calls this his foot water.    It is pretty painful somedays and with all the walking we do he seems to be in a lot of pain by the time he goes to bed at night.

I woke up on the Sunday morning before Thanksgiving at the home of some amazing friends in Belgrade.  We were ready to go to the International Church there and have a fun afternoon with them.
My leg was hurting a little and so I sent everyone else and stayed at home.  Once I was alone things seemed to go down hill very rapidly.  After two hours (that felt like about 2 days) on the bathroom floor vomiting like I've never done before everyone returned.

My temperature was up to almost 103 degrees;  phone calls were made and Trey and Kyle (big Kyle) took me to a private clinic nearby.  They gave me an iv with some good drugs to stop the vomiting and did some blood work.  I was then transported by ambulance to the private hospital across town for observation.  I don't remember much of this, but Trey said it was cool when they would turn on the sirens and breeze past all the traffic on the bridge.

After lots of tests and blood work they were still concerned that we didn't know the source of the infection...then, on Monday morning my foot began to swell and turned the color of Santa's suit.  Ah ha, my friends, we have found the problem.

After a very cool looking dopplar scan of my whole leg to rule out blood clots, they started me on heavy duty iv antibiotics.  I stayed for a couple more days and then was discharged and headed back to Kyle and Jen's house with an iv port in my hand.  I went back and forth to the clinic each day for more iv drugs for three more days, we celebrated Thanksgiving in Belgrade with Kyle and Jen and I was released by the doctor and we came back home late Friday night.

I had a pretty serious strep infection in the skin and tissue in my left foot and leg.  Again...this is a condition usually found in elderly diabetic women.  I'm not diabetic and so that leaves...you guessed it...OLD!

This is the almost all the redness gone, still pretty swollen and molting phase.

I'm almost back to "normal" (whatever normal is).  The redness is almost gone and the swelling continues to lessen.  Now I'm molting.  All the old infected skin is slowly peeling away and leving pretty healthy soft skin that actually looks YOUNG!

I promised Kyle that I would put a link to their blog...he made a couple of posts about Thanksgiving with some pictures of us celebrating together.  Jen did it all.  We are of course most thankful for a God who heals and protects, and this year our number two was for friends who will rearrange their lives and their plans to minister to us.

http://lovegrowslovegoes.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-serbian-style.html

Okay...stop reading right now if you are not a fan of people who give out tmi (too much information)...

Best part of the hospital stay...really amazingly nice staff of doctors and nurses who gave me great care.

Worst part of hospital stay...rectal thermometer...I hadn't experienced this since I was about two years old...there is really nothing else to say.