Pain in the...

Occasionally, I make a passing reference to Mike in my entries here. But generally, I don't talk about him because, frankly, he doesn't like it when I do. However, I'm breaking my rule to tell you a frustrating tale that we're living right now.

(If you're here from MagMoms, this will sound familiar. Feel free to scroll on down to "Buzz word.")

Mike hurt his knee playing racquetball (read: channeling his inner 16 year old) with the kids about 10 days ago. This is the same knee he had surgery on in November. It wasn't like a big major injury on the racquetball court, but he said he did notice it being sore from time to time as he was playing. Well that night, the knee swelled up to the size of a grapefruit. He was in quite a bit of pain and spent the weekend icing it and staying off it.

By Tuesday night, the swelling grew to include his calf and he was having severe calf pain. I was worried about a blood clot, so he went to the family doc on Wednesday. (He'd called the surgeon who did the knee surgery, but never got a return call. Don't get me started...) The family doc looked at it, said he didn't think it was a clot and used a needle to drain some of the fluid. That bought him about 6 hours of mild relief.

Once the initial relief of the needle aspiration was over, he was using his crutches and really unable to get around at all. Thursday afternoon, he called the surgeon again but he couldn't get an appointment until Tuesday (today). So he just kept icing it and taking ibuprofen. By Friday afternoon, he was in real pain. I'm sure traipsing around at the Go Red for Women luncheon didn't help. We called the family doc again, since the surgeon's office had been oh so helpful, and they called in an Rx for some pain meds and said he could see the family doc today (Monday).

Saturday night, he woke me about 2am and showed me that the swelling had moved up to include his thigh as well. I used a tape measure to see that his right thigh (injured leg) was swollen to 4 inches bigger in circumference than the left leg. By Sunday afternoon, it was 6 inches, so we went to the ER.

At the ER, they did an ultrasound and assured us (again) there's no clot. Then they sent us home with instructions to keep doing what we're doing and see the surgeon on Tuesday. They did give him an oral antibiotic in case there's an infection. His leg is so swollen that he can't bend the knee at all. He's in pain. He's not sleeping (so I'm not sleeping, hence the mid-of-the-night blogging). He can't drive, can't walk and is quite frankly depressed about the whole situation.

Please pray that the surgeon has some real answers for him. He/we just can't keep this going like we have been for the last 10 days.

I've been googling like mad, trying to come up with a diagnosis -- because you know, doctors love it when we do that. But it makes me feel like I'm doing something.

Anyone out there have a medical(ish) degree -- real or from Google University -- and care to offer any ideas? We're all ears...and one giant, puffy leg.