A Year Ago today

Update: I forgot to add his current picture of his leg. This is what it looks like today, yes he sent me this picture from Iraq and was not too thrilled to do so.

This time a year ago we were in the middle of a scary situation. Rob had been bitten by a spider 10 days earlier. He was bitten by a wolf spider on Saturday afternoon; he washed it off and went on. By Wednesday he noticed he had a lump on his leg and called the DR. They said they could not see him and to call back tomorrow. He called back Thursday morning and said he had a golf ball in his leg. They said it was soldiers time and to call back tomorrow. Friday morning he called back again and said he had a baseball in his leg. They said he could not be seen, they had no appointments. After some not so nice words they told him to go to Urgent care. I took him to Urgent care and they drained it and put him on antibiotics. We went back Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and everyday they would re put in a drain tube, add new meds and send him home. By Tuesday morning they said they wanted him to see a different DR. so we went back that afternoon for a second appointment. They sent him to a surgeon. She took one look at his leg and said he needed surgery. What Rob had not told me was it had moved to his abdomen. We instantly drove to the hospital. He was taken in for surgery almost immediately. He came out with a 4 inch incision on his leg and another four inch incision on his stomach (I swear it looked like he had a c-section). He was so upset because this meant he would not be leaving for Warrant school. His boss came by the next morning and he said he would be ready to leave for school a week later. The next morning he was taken in a second time for second clean out surgery. On Friday he was released to come home with a home health nurse. I was a nervous wreck because she was only coming once a day and I would need to do the dressing change the other time. Do you remember the first time I had to change his dressing? When I say dressing that means packing and when you pulled the packing out you could see muscles in his stomach and leg. It was horrible. He almost always refused pain meds. The first time I had to do it I was in tears and could hardly see. Rob kept saying comments to make me relax and instead it was upsetting me more. Finally I shouted at him and then this is what I did. I took a deep breath and put on my rubber gloves and picked up the tweezers, wiped away tears, changed my gloves. Then I said this to him as I was moving closer and closer. My husband bought a boat behind my back, my husband messed up mother’s day. That poor man did not know rather to run or be scared. But I did it and then did it every day for the next thirty. I have to say this brought us closer to each other than anything else could have.
The next month was wonderful. Rob was home the whole time but I could not ask him to do anything. He was allowed to pick up a dinner plate and walk. So I kept the house clean which means I was more relaxed. All he wanted to do was shop because he could be walking around. My husband does not like shopping but we shopped everyday for something.
If you have a week stomach do not scroll down because the pictures are graphic. He has healed great and is currently in Iraq. He made it to Warrant School a few months later and passed. He says his leg is still not back to normal but it looks great and he is able to keep up with everyone else.
I just realized that I forgot to say that staph had set in and that was what they could not get under control.