Help Ricki heal
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This is a family that has been through a lot but still enjoys every second of life. I met Linsey when she was a nurse at a hospital that I worked for. To make a long story short, she introduced me to the love of my life who happened to be her brother in law. I married her brother in law. It was amazing to become part of this family. My best friend became my sister in law. Who could ask for more?
Enough about me. Joining this family, I got to see what an amazing person Ricki, Linsey's husband, is. They married young and had two beautiful girls. Then they found out that Ricki had cancer. After a long battle, he overcame this battle and got a new knee out of it. Half of his lower leg is nearly gone, showing next to no muscle. But life went on. Ricki strove to overcome and be a great provider for his family. Ricki fights through pain every day. Earlier this year his leg started to give him problems again, however because Covid was here and people were losing their jobs, Ricki fought through the pain and fought again the pain.
In July his leg started to give out on him. He finally started to try and find the reason. after an MRI and xrays they found out that something was not functioning right in his prosthetic knee. They didn't know what but they knew they needed to go in and do surgery. They called it an exploratory surgery. I'm going to caption Linsey's facebook posts for the rest.
" For the first time in 10 years Rickis prosthetic knee stopped working. He had to have surgery at Huntsman’s Cancer Hospital last Wednesday. Going into the surgery we were unsure of what was wrong. Well after 5.5 hours he was out. He is so strong he’s already up walking around! Due to covid I was unable to take one step into the hospital. This was extremely distressing to me, as I am his advocate, his wife, and a nurse! I was so anxious without being with him. It tops as one of the most anxious horrible days of my life, of course after his cancer and MRSA days. A good friend of mine mentioned maybe I have some PTSD due to what we have been through together. I think she is right as soon as we turned down the street to head to Huntsman, I was emotional and felt out of control. Ricki of course was strong and amazing as always. He had broken a plastic part in his knee that had dislodged its way and was found 3 inches from where it should have been! He also needed a full knee replacement and the bottom of his femur replaced as well as bone grafts, for the holes in his femur from inflammation and injury. He has been having some issues since February, but refusing to see a doctor. His doctor told me he most likely had been having incredible pain this whole time. He said that most people stay in the hospital for 3-7 days, but Ricki came home within 18 hours! We are so blessed there was no infection. When he came out of post op he was in an incredible amount of pain. He FaceTimed me and over 75 minutes he pushed his call button 6 times for pain medicine. It took 80 minutes to get any! Aids or nurses answered and just kept saying “we will let your nurse know”. I called the front desk, but no one answered. This was so frustrating to me because if I had been there I would have demanded he have something immediately! I know covid is going on, but everyone needs an advocate! He had horrible service his whole stay and if he wouldn’t have been as alert as he was who knows how long he would have gone without medicine. Im sure the nurses tried their best. Im not saying the hospital is horrible but every patient should be allowed one advocate or family member. As a nurse our first job is to be an advocate for our patients and it was so frustrating I couldn’t be his advocate. These pictures are NOT from Rickis surgery, but a similar patient. Although the leg and stitches is his!"
"I have tried numerous times to write this and have had to stop. However the one thing I learned while Ricki had cancer is if you let people in they will support you. Going through something like this alone is beyond difficult. As many of you know Ricki recently had surgery on his “internal amputation“. Which is essentially a prosthetic knee, 1/4 of a prosthetic femur with a rod up to his hip along with A prosthetic knee, half a prosthetic tibia and a rod down to his ankle. He had ostesarcoma of the right tibia diagnosed in 2009. This has taken me many days to write this due to the emotional aspect behind it. A good friend recently suggested I had PTSD from his cancer and then a year later MRSA scare, apparently she is right.
So Ricki continued to have the fluid drain out of his leg. The doctors weren’t worried about that and stated that was normal as the knee is a tight joint and when bent can compress the fluid, that the body normally absorbs. However I still called and made him an appointment for Friday. Just for some peace of mind before the weekend.
Thursday night when I came home from work Ricki
was out mowing the lawn. He came inside and stated that he just felt overall unwell. This was around 4:30 pm. His leg was leaking fluid, I attempted to re-wrap his leg, but his pain was a 9/10. I couldn’t even put the lightest pressure on it. He toughed it out and I changed out all of his dressings. There was no signs or symptoms of infection. No odor, no redness. It looked healthy. He attempted to lay on the couch and watch TV but was unable to due to his discomfort. He went and laid in bed. If you know Ricki you know he does not sit still. Never lays in bed when he can be up and moving. He was under the covers and shivering. He had a small low grade fever of 100.7. His pulse was 104 and I had a bad feeling. I contacted the on call oncology orthopedic surgeon who evaluated his pictures, and videos I sent him and suggested that I take Ricki to the emergency room for a possible DVT. This is a deep vein thrombosis, which can lead to a PE or pulmonary embolism. Myself being a nurse knows that 1 out of every 4 people with a PE do not make it and 10-30% of people with a DVT develop a PE in the following month.
It was difficult to get him to the car as he was shivering, painful, and a little confused. I thought he was getting some water when our daughter, Lexi, informed me he was laying on the concrete driveway next to the car, shivering. I rushed him to the emergency room. I attempted to preregister him over the phone, but they do not do that. When I pulled up we registered him and they informed me that I could not stay with him, due to COVID! They stated it was for my protection. I begged them to please let me in. I will sign all of my rights away. He is unable to be a good historian and let them know what is going on. His pulse was 121. This is where it gets difficult. They let me sit in the waiting room, until they took him back. It was a good ten to fifteen minute wait. I’m usually calm during emergencies, but I couldn’t stop crying. I was afraid it would be the last time I would see my husband. My other half. My yin to my yang.
He was trying to comfort me but was in so much pain. While we sat and waited for them to call him back a family was allowed to go back and see what I assume was their dying father. Two of them had no shoes, were obviously on drugs, clothes that were disgusting, inappropriate, and just plain dirty. Four of them could go back at a time, but I wasn’t given the option to be my husbands advocate! I have devoted my life to caring for the sick, but when my own husband needs something I was shut out. It felt like an unfair injustice. I cried, told them it was bullshit and begged. Then they took him away. I wasn’t allowed to stay in the waiting room and I walked back to my car hysterical. I have never in my life cried so hard and felt such a loss. I knew in my heart something was terribly wrong. My car charger of course malfunctioned and I hurry and drove home so I wouldn’t miss a promised call from the nurses and doctors. They promised to call so that I could let them know what my husbands history was as well as to be kept informed. This call never came. NO ONE EVER CALLED ME.
Ricki did call me at 1:30 in the morning saying they were releasing him. I couldn’t believe it, how, he is so ill. They did an ultrasound no DVT and they think he may have an infection. They cultured some fluid draining and sent him home. I picked up his antibiotic and a few pain pills, fed him and put him to bed. The next morning he wasn’t better. His leg was leaking copious amounts. I mean when I woke up he had a mop and was just mopping up the fluid off the kitchen floor and rinsing and repeating. I taped a chuX around his leg (Goes on hospital beds to soak up urine). Within 30 minutes it was saturated. I weighed it and it had 6 extra ounces of fluid. He was losing so much fluid.
Ricki went to Huntsman to his doctors appointment where they took him to emergency surgery. They diligently opened up his old stitches and cleaned his “parts” with soap and water, then a second time with peroxide mixture, then a third time with 14 liters of saline. A surgery that was supposed to last 45 minutes was over 3 hours. They mixed concrete with some antibiotics and “filled some parts” then they dumped 3 extra vials of antibiotics in and sewed him up.
The doctor called and stated that they removed the dead tissue surrounding the joint. They took a culture, but didn’t expect anything to grow due to the copious amounts of antibiotics he received in the ER (didn’t even know about). They expected that Ricki would have to stay a few days, meet with infectious disease group of doctors to work out a plan as well as get a Picc line.
Ricki notified me the next morning that the hospital he was at the previous night kept calling him around 1 ish am. They had urgent test results and wanted Ricki to head to the emergency room immediately. He had sepsis. This is devastating for so many reasons. We don’t know if Ricki will have to have all of his new “parts“ removed (like last time). If he wouldn’t have gone to the emergency room that night....I can’t even go down hat road. Essentially he has an infection that has spread through his heart and his entire body. This is life threatening left untreated. He is still in the hospital now. He of course is strong, positive as ever and a tough guy. I’ve had a few meltdowns. My dishwasher was broken. I tried and failed to fix it. The hose popped off and water sprayed everywhere. It was the last straw. I yelled, cried, swore, left the water on the floor and put myself in time out for two hours. So that’s the update. Thank you all for being you, because I know we won’t be able to complete this all alone. Also if I am grumpy, angry, or short well I’m trying, but my coping mechanism is to shut down. My mom asked me to write this out to keep family, friends and loved ones aware."
"Ricki was very excited to hopefully leave the hospital, but when they unwrapped his leg fluids began gushing out. He is now preparing for his third surgery in 10 days. His first surgery was August 6th, then last Friday and today as soon as an OR opens up. He is getting antsy, angry, but trying to be positive. I’m still unable to see him. Last week he was planning on heading in to work tomorrow. That’s how great he felt last week. This week he has a Picc line and antibiotics around the clock. I’m trying to stay positive but it’s difficult because when things are tough in life you go to your spouse to work through it, but we are unable to be together . Thanks for all the prayers, good vibes and thoughts. It’s overwhelming how many people reached out. Thank you all ."
The latest we've heard is that they are headed back into surgery to remove all of his hardware and start over again. He is in surgery now....
What most don't know is that while all of this is going on, Linsey is working as a hospice nurse trying to support her family and pay her bills. Ricki does not have short term disability and is not getting paid for this time off. I know this burden is great on both of them. Knowing Ricki, he will try and go back to work as soon as possible because he wont want his family to struggle financially. I've created this gofundme page because Ricki needs to rest. Please donate what you can so Ricki can rest and heal. Please help this great family make it through another struggle. I will try to keep you up to date on all that is happening.
Enough about me. Joining this family, I got to see what an amazing person Ricki, Linsey's husband, is. They married young and had two beautiful girls. Then they found out that Ricki had cancer. After a long battle, he overcame this battle and got a new knee out of it. Half of his lower leg is nearly gone, showing next to no muscle. But life went on. Ricki strove to overcome and be a great provider for his family. Ricki fights through pain every day. Earlier this year his leg started to give him problems again, however because Covid was here and people were losing their jobs, Ricki fought through the pain and fought again the pain.
In July his leg started to give out on him. He finally started to try and find the reason. after an MRI and xrays they found out that something was not functioning right in his prosthetic knee. They didn't know what but they knew they needed to go in and do surgery. They called it an exploratory surgery. I'm going to caption Linsey's facebook posts for the rest.
" For the first time in 10 years Rickis prosthetic knee stopped working. He had to have surgery at Huntsman’s Cancer Hospital last Wednesday. Going into the surgery we were unsure of what was wrong. Well after 5.5 hours he was out. He is so strong he’s already up walking around! Due to covid I was unable to take one step into the hospital. This was extremely distressing to me, as I am his advocate, his wife, and a nurse! I was so anxious without being with him. It tops as one of the most anxious horrible days of my life, of course after his cancer and MRSA days. A good friend of mine mentioned maybe I have some PTSD due to what we have been through together. I think she is right as soon as we turned down the street to head to Huntsman, I was emotional and felt out of control. Ricki of course was strong and amazing as always. He had broken a plastic part in his knee that had dislodged its way and was found 3 inches from where it should have been! He also needed a full knee replacement and the bottom of his femur replaced as well as bone grafts, for the holes in his femur from inflammation and injury. He has been having some issues since February, but refusing to see a doctor. His doctor told me he most likely had been having incredible pain this whole time. He said that most people stay in the hospital for 3-7 days, but Ricki came home within 18 hours! We are so blessed there was no infection. When he came out of post op he was in an incredible amount of pain. He FaceTimed me and over 75 minutes he pushed his call button 6 times for pain medicine. It took 80 minutes to get any! Aids or nurses answered and just kept saying “we will let your nurse know”. I called the front desk, but no one answered. This was so frustrating to me because if I had been there I would have demanded he have something immediately! I know covid is going on, but everyone needs an advocate! He had horrible service his whole stay and if he wouldn’t have been as alert as he was who knows how long he would have gone without medicine. Im sure the nurses tried their best. Im not saying the hospital is horrible but every patient should be allowed one advocate or family member. As a nurse our first job is to be an advocate for our patients and it was so frustrating I couldn’t be his advocate. These pictures are NOT from Rickis surgery, but a similar patient. Although the leg and stitches is his!"
"I have tried numerous times to write this and have had to stop. However the one thing I learned while Ricki had cancer is if you let people in they will support you. Going through something like this alone is beyond difficult. As many of you know Ricki recently had surgery on his “internal amputation“. Which is essentially a prosthetic knee, 1/4 of a prosthetic femur with a rod up to his hip along with A prosthetic knee, half a prosthetic tibia and a rod down to his ankle. He had ostesarcoma of the right tibia diagnosed in 2009. This has taken me many days to write this due to the emotional aspect behind it. A good friend recently suggested I had PTSD from his cancer and then a year later MRSA scare, apparently she is right.
So Ricki continued to have the fluid drain out of his leg. The doctors weren’t worried about that and stated that was normal as the knee is a tight joint and when bent can compress the fluid, that the body normally absorbs. However I still called and made him an appointment for Friday. Just for some peace of mind before the weekend.
Thursday night when I came home from work Ricki
was out mowing the lawn. He came inside and stated that he just felt overall unwell. This was around 4:30 pm. His leg was leaking fluid, I attempted to re-wrap his leg, but his pain was a 9/10. I couldn’t even put the lightest pressure on it. He toughed it out and I changed out all of his dressings. There was no signs or symptoms of infection. No odor, no redness. It looked healthy. He attempted to lay on the couch and watch TV but was unable to due to his discomfort. He went and laid in bed. If you know Ricki you know he does not sit still. Never lays in bed when he can be up and moving. He was under the covers and shivering. He had a small low grade fever of 100.7. His pulse was 104 and I had a bad feeling. I contacted the on call oncology orthopedic surgeon who evaluated his pictures, and videos I sent him and suggested that I take Ricki to the emergency room for a possible DVT. This is a deep vein thrombosis, which can lead to a PE or pulmonary embolism. Myself being a nurse knows that 1 out of every 4 people with a PE do not make it and 10-30% of people with a DVT develop a PE in the following month.
It was difficult to get him to the car as he was shivering, painful, and a little confused. I thought he was getting some water when our daughter, Lexi, informed me he was laying on the concrete driveway next to the car, shivering. I rushed him to the emergency room. I attempted to preregister him over the phone, but they do not do that. When I pulled up we registered him and they informed me that I could not stay with him, due to COVID! They stated it was for my protection. I begged them to please let me in. I will sign all of my rights away. He is unable to be a good historian and let them know what is going on. His pulse was 121. This is where it gets difficult. They let me sit in the waiting room, until they took him back. It was a good ten to fifteen minute wait. I’m usually calm during emergencies, but I couldn’t stop crying. I was afraid it would be the last time I would see my husband. My other half. My yin to my yang.
He was trying to comfort me but was in so much pain. While we sat and waited for them to call him back a family was allowed to go back and see what I assume was their dying father. Two of them had no shoes, were obviously on drugs, clothes that were disgusting, inappropriate, and just plain dirty. Four of them could go back at a time, but I wasn’t given the option to be my husbands advocate! I have devoted my life to caring for the sick, but when my own husband needs something I was shut out. It felt like an unfair injustice. I cried, told them it was bullshit and begged. Then they took him away. I wasn’t allowed to stay in the waiting room and I walked back to my car hysterical. I have never in my life cried so hard and felt such a loss. I knew in my heart something was terribly wrong. My car charger of course malfunctioned and I hurry and drove home so I wouldn’t miss a promised call from the nurses and doctors. They promised to call so that I could let them know what my husbands history was as well as to be kept informed. This call never came. NO ONE EVER CALLED ME.
Ricki did call me at 1:30 in the morning saying they were releasing him. I couldn’t believe it, how, he is so ill. They did an ultrasound no DVT and they think he may have an infection. They cultured some fluid draining and sent him home. I picked up his antibiotic and a few pain pills, fed him and put him to bed. The next morning he wasn’t better. His leg was leaking copious amounts. I mean when I woke up he had a mop and was just mopping up the fluid off the kitchen floor and rinsing and repeating. I taped a chuX around his leg (Goes on hospital beds to soak up urine). Within 30 minutes it was saturated. I weighed it and it had 6 extra ounces of fluid. He was losing so much fluid.
Ricki went to Huntsman to his doctors appointment where they took him to emergency surgery. They diligently opened up his old stitches and cleaned his “parts” with soap and water, then a second time with peroxide mixture, then a third time with 14 liters of saline. A surgery that was supposed to last 45 minutes was over 3 hours. They mixed concrete with some antibiotics and “filled some parts” then they dumped 3 extra vials of antibiotics in and sewed him up.
The doctor called and stated that they removed the dead tissue surrounding the joint. They took a culture, but didn’t expect anything to grow due to the copious amounts of antibiotics he received in the ER (didn’t even know about). They expected that Ricki would have to stay a few days, meet with infectious disease group of doctors to work out a plan as well as get a Picc line.
Ricki notified me the next morning that the hospital he was at the previous night kept calling him around 1 ish am. They had urgent test results and wanted Ricki to head to the emergency room immediately. He had sepsis. This is devastating for so many reasons. We don’t know if Ricki will have to have all of his new “parts“ removed (like last time). If he wouldn’t have gone to the emergency room that night....I can’t even go down hat road. Essentially he has an infection that has spread through his heart and his entire body. This is life threatening left untreated. He is still in the hospital now. He of course is strong, positive as ever and a tough guy. I’ve had a few meltdowns. My dishwasher was broken. I tried and failed to fix it. The hose popped off and water sprayed everywhere. It was the last straw. I yelled, cried, swore, left the water on the floor and put myself in time out for two hours. So that’s the update. Thank you all for being you, because I know we won’t be able to complete this all alone. Also if I am grumpy, angry, or short well I’m trying, but my coping mechanism is to shut down. My mom asked me to write this out to keep family, friends and loved ones aware."
"Ricki was very excited to hopefully leave the hospital, but when they unwrapped his leg fluids began gushing out. He is now preparing for his third surgery in 10 days. His first surgery was August 6th, then last Friday and today as soon as an OR opens up. He is getting antsy, angry, but trying to be positive. I’m still unable to see him. Last week he was planning on heading in to work tomorrow. That’s how great he felt last week. This week he has a Picc line and antibiotics around the clock. I’m trying to stay positive but it’s difficult because when things are tough in life you go to your spouse to work through it, but we are unable to be together . Thanks for all the prayers, good vibes and thoughts. It’s overwhelming how many people reached out. Thank you all ."
The latest we've heard is that they are headed back into surgery to remove all of his hardware and start over again. He is in surgery now....
What most don't know is that while all of this is going on, Linsey is working as a hospice nurse trying to support her family and pay her bills. Ricki does not have short term disability and is not getting paid for this time off. I know this burden is great on both of them. Knowing Ricki, he will try and go back to work as soon as possible because he wont want his family to struggle financially. I've created this gofundme page because Ricki needs to rest. Please donate what you can so Ricki can rest and heal. Please help this great family make it through another struggle. I will try to keep you up to date on all that is happening.
Co-organizers (2)
Christy Cahoon Leavitt
Organizer
Clearfield, UT
Linsey Leavitt
Co-organizer