Mayo Clinic

In August of 2010 Rich had been experiencing increased pain in his left arm. He showed me a major bump there, which I told him should be checked out. He went to the doctor with x-rays. He is already missing 3.5 inches of ulna (the small bone) in his forearm. The larger bone has a plate in it. The plate has pulled out of the bone and is sticking up. One of the nails actually broke. The nails holding the plate into the bone were pulled out. The bone has never healed under the plate. This was (once again) caused by a medical professional during a routine exam. The orthopedic surgeon in Los Alamos suggested amputation. Richard would rather die. Honestly, that is what he said. There were so many issues even if we did find a doctor that would do the surgery, that I don't know if it is a good idea. He had a MRSA infection in his ankle, which is dormant at the moment but evidently can come back at any time when the body is open to the air. The blood flow in that arm is minimal because of the loss of muscle and bone.

View from the top of the plate that was in the bone.  The short screw on the left was broken off, and is still in the bone.  

View from the side of the plate, which shows how the plate was bent.  This occurred while on the bone, and is the reason for the screw being broken off as well.  

While discussing this at  work, my co-worker suggested that we go to Mayo Clinic.  We were going to Florida anyway in August so I called to get an appointment at the orthopedic clinic at Mayo in Jacksonville, FL  

Right before we left, we went to see an orthopedic doctor in Santa Fe that Richard had previously seen and liked. We asked him about going to Mayo. He had done his residency at Mayo and so he was very supportive of going there, and if they wanted to do surgery, he suggested that we have them do it.  He talked about a new bone hormone that induces bone fusing.  This bone hormone will help to encourage the healing of new bone that they would get from Rich’s hip to put in the arm. 

The surgeon at Mayo thought that he could fix the arm by taking out the hardware, cross-connecting the radius to the ulna, straightening out the arm, and buffing up the ends of the bones to encourage them to heal. He thought that they didn't need to use bone from Rich's hip, but he could use cadaver bone.  

Richard went back to Florida in October for the surgery.  I was working and needed to stay home.  I had a job, and to take care of Michael, so I didn't go.  My father and sister-in-law went to Jacksonville and sat with him there.  He went into surgery at 5:30 am and didn't come out until 1:15pm.  They took the two bones nearest the wrist and connected the two of them with hardware. There are 10 screws in that hardware. They did not have to use any bone fragments from his pelvis but they did use the bone hormone. His forearm is now about 1/2 an inch shorter than it was previously. The doctor did this so that the bone did not have to heal in two places, but only one. 

An amazing side note here is that Richard was contacted by a local bishop while in Jacksonville.  They found out that he was there, and made the contact.  Amazing!  

We thought that it was just a matter of healing at that point, and he went to the surgeon in Santa Fe for follow up.  We went in for about the third follow up and found out that all the healing that was previously showing up was gone. It didn't heal.  It never healed.  Richard blames that on medications that he was on, which he feels that he 

In 2013 we went back to Mayo Clinic for another try.  The skin seemed to heal really well after the surgery and I was hopeful that the bones would as well.  They never did.  His arm is still a non-union.  He wears a brace to protect it and it is cross-connected (see photo.)  

After writing this post, I talked to Richard about going to see the local doctor about doing the surgery again, this time using his own bone from his hip/pelvis. This local doctor is an expert in non-unions and this was his suggestion.  He also specializes in foot/ankle injuries, so having him to do surgery on the ankle fusion seemed logical as well.  We actually got his name from a former ward member who works in the orthopedic field here in town. I am anxious to talk to him now that things have had time to settle down and see if one or both of those surgeries could be done.  

The second time surgery was done at Mayo Clinic

After the second surgery.  We had high hopes, but  sadly, it was, (and still is) and non-union.