Support Bryan’s road to recovery and walking again

On the 16th of December Bryan went in for just another routine knee surgery, nothing new as most of you know. Bryan spent 4 days in the hospital recovering and did amazing. The surgery went well and Bryan came home. What we and the doctors didn’t know was Bryan developed a hematoma on the upper part of his knee. The hematoma became filled with staph infected blood and began flooding Bryan’s knee with infected blood. On December 27th Bryan’s knee began bleeding at a much quicker rate from the open drain that he had. Then the pain set in. When I talk about pain most of you reading this know Bryan has been through multiple knee surgeries, military deployments during which he was blown up multiple times and many other things, this pain was unlike anything I have ever seen. By the time we reached the hospital Bryan was in so much pain he was begging for it to stop and slipping in and out of consciousness. The doctors started there evaluations and thankfully gave Bryan a cocktail of morphine,fentanyl and Demerol which took the edge off the pain and made it to where Bryan could breathe for a second. During this time Bryan and I asked for his knee to be looked at for infection at which time we were told they weren’t worried about infection because operating rooms are clean environments. They moved Bryan to a special ER observation floor where they started running test this is where everything went south. Bryan became very delirious to the point where he couldn’t stay conscious or put a sentence together he couldn’t talk or do anything other than stare. This is where the real fear of what was happening set in for I’d say both of us. They moved Bryan to the Neurological ICU and upon arrival stated Bryan had a massive infection in his knee and it had started pumping through his blood stream. He had now gone into full blown sepsis. The delirium from earlier was caused by the sepsis. The doctors started pumping him full of different medication and told us to prepare for Bryan’s organs to start shutting down. This became the scariest moment of my life I believed I would lose my husband and I didn’t know what to do but as always Bryan even scared and worried tried his best to comfort me even joking that he had become jaundiced stating he was an Oompa Loompa. Next it’s was discovered that Bryan had a temp of 106 degrees which is very dangerous and can cause serious problems. They started trying to cool his body with ice packs and cooling blankets, which wasn’t working fast enough. The doctors came in and stated emergency surgery was needed and took Bryan away. I sat there not knowing what would happen or how Bryan would come back . They were going to open Bryan’s leg up and see the full extent of the damage and could have to amputate his leg and I truly didn’t know how to process that. As they spoke with me they were telling Bryan the same in the pre op room and as usual he made jokes and tried to lighten the mood telling the doctors his guys call him Uno so at least his road name would still fit having one leg. Surgery began and about two hrs later they had removed about a cantaloupe size of damaged and dead tissue and muscle from Bryan’s knee and leg but they saved his leg and he was brought back to the ICU. Over the the next 6 days Bryan went through multiple treatments and tests and procedures. He was released from the hospital after 9 days and left with damage to his kidneys, liver and no ability to walk unassisted by either wheel chair or crutches. He started IV antibiotics at home through a pic line in his arm and regular in home nurse visits. Physical therapy has now began and I will say watching Bryan go through it is hard to see. It’s painful and it takes a toll but as Bryan says pain heals and he’s doing better but it is going to be a long road. Bryan is strong and never gives up and has been through so much but he has been told as of today he still can’t work for 10weeks if not longer and that walking unassisted will still take time. With all of this are savings is drained and we are asking for any help that can be given. The VA is also trying to fight us on covering this so there is currently a $100k bill we are dealing with. Just sharing this helps Bryan and his family. Thank you for reading his story and helping in any way possible.