Complications.

WARNING: More graphic pictures follow, so if you get squeamish you will probably want to sit this one out! 

It has been a month since Blaise’s accident at work and subsequent surgery, but instead of being well on his way to recovery, there have been some complications.

The week following surgery was fine, other than a lot of pain for him and feelings of complete uselessness, but his hand was okay, and the finger appeared to have regained blood flow and feeling was returning.  That was GREAT news! About a week after surgery, the big bandage was removed and this slimmer splint replaced it…

Two weeks after surgery, the stitches came out.  This, too, was great because it meant that Blaise could finally wash his hand and not have to worry about the odd smells and dried blood anymore.  The problem was, after they removed the stitches and had him start therapy, the wound opened up and he started bleeding again, thus the steri-strips on the index finger…

After only a few days of the stitches being out, his finger swelled up to about twice the normal size (hard to see here) and the skin split apart.  It was oozing and bleeding some, so therapy was suspended until the swelling went down (about another week)…

Then, about three weeks after surgery, the wound started to look better and appeared to be closing up.  Everyone was pretty happy about this, as it meant that the finger was finally cooperating.  He resumed therapy and started a wet/dry wrap to begin removing dead skin to keep the healing area clean.  We were excited because we felt like everything was finally where it should be.  The black skin is a combination of dried blood and dead skin…

Unfortunately, only a couple of days later, skin from the original wound was starting come off in large chunks.  The other dead skin was coming off, too, and that was looking great; however, his finger had a very foul smell (although nothing like some of the terrible wounds I encountered in the Tonj clinic last summer) and the skin was turning completely black over the wound.  The OT stopped therapy again, and said that we would watch that wound area…

Unfortunately, the chunk of skin covering the original laceration area died.  Everything around it still looked good, but the central tissue died and had that chunk of skin fallen off, the tendons would have been exposed.  In fact, on Thursday the surgeon removed that black chunk and directly underneath the tendons could be seen.  Not cool.  At that point, the surgeon booked Blaise for a SECOND SURGERY on Friday. Blaise needed a skin graft to cover up the open area in order to save the tendons (if they dry out, they die), because if anything happens to those tendons, Blaise loses his finger.  So, Friday (4 weeks and 2 days following the accident) we went back to the surgical center and Blaise went through a second operation so save his finger.

Blaise is doing well now, although there is a whole new mess of pain in his hand and arm.  They actually took skin from the back of his middle finger AND his forearm to complete the skin graft.  He is in intense pain from the skin graft, along with continuing pain from the nerve regenerating (ongoing).  He’s going through another rough patch, but we kind of have a death grip on God’s promises right now.

This whole thing is very stressful and is really boggling our minds.  We just keep praying and clinging to God, and we know that a lot of this is just preparing us for trials we’ll endure in the future.  We are “between rains,” and we know that this is a time for growing our faith, so we are just allowing God to work in His mysterious ways.  We also know that the mission field is full of trials and challenges, and while they will probably be of a different nature, they will be no less grueling.  So, we continue to call this pre-field training…for what? We don’t really know, but we trust God and His sovereignty in our lives.

Please join us in praying for Blaise…for complete healing, for comfort, and for strength.