Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Venice, Florida

I am officially calling shenanigans on the Gulf. Water warm enough to bathe in—what's that? I'll tell you what it is—it's an ocean for the weak.

1 comment:

Bonnie + Joey said...

This is an e-mail I got about the dangers of baring flesh in the watery evils of the Gulf. I am against the Gulf Coast, and this story shores up my position. Worse than grizzly bears.
_____________________________

I am writing this as a warning to all of you about going to the coast fishing and the precautions to take. This is not a common occurrence but is certainly a possibility for anyone. So please beware. The doctors recommend not to go to the water if you are immune compromised or have a cut/scratch or abrasion. They say to take alcohol or diluted bleach to clean immediately if something occurs or clean after being in the water OR touching fish. This occurs during the summer months.

Hubby Harvey and I went fishing on 6-10 & 6-11 at Rockport. I remember commenting to Harvey saying honey your leg is bleeding. It was nothing major just a teeny scratch/cut and he wiped it off and we kept fishing. We were in our boat and never went wade fishing (this is important). The bay water was moving not stagnant (this is important too). On 6-11-06 Harvey commented that his leg felt tight (that's all.. tight). I being a massage therapist said maybe your calf is tight, try stretching it out. That evening we went to dinner and he became violently ill with shivers and a fever. We went to the ER around 8p.m. his leg was still just tight no pain yet. By the time we got from triage to the ER room (about 1 hour) he was in screaming pain. No drugs they gave him would relieve the pain. By 4a.m. that morning his blood pressure crashed and we thought we were going to lose him. The ER doctor could not find any reason for the pain. Nothing was presenting itself to tell him what was going on.

They moved him to ICU and within a day blisters broke out on his leg and the pain went away. The doctors had decided that he had Vibrio, Streptococcus or some sort of flesh eating bacteria causing Cellulitis, Necrotizing Fasciitis (dying tissue).

Within another day or so his body started shutting down and they put him in a coma and put him on life support and had us call in the family and friends fearing he would not live. He was in a coma for around 2-1/2 weeks while they supported him completely. He lived through that and came out of the coma and they discovered the back of his leg had turned black and the tissue was dead. They did a debridement (cleaning) and then transferred him to San Antonio hoping that he could heal from there. He was off the ventilator but still on dialysis because his kidneys were still not working.

Two weeks later they did another debridement at Santa Rosa hospital and after he started back down hill again they decided to amputate his leg above the knee to save his life. This amputation was done on July 12th. His kidneys and lungs are doing well now but he still remains very ill but hopefully improving. Things are still touch and go. We are not sure how much longer he will be in the hospital but are praying he can return home soon.