Carey's Achilles...

So last Monday night, Carey had a LONG night with excruciating pain in his big toe. He was so frustrated that he had major surgery on his achilles tendon and it was his big toe that was killing him! I was worried that the surgery had caused something so in the morning, Carey called the doctor and told him about the pain. Dr. Funderburk immediately said to come back up to OKC and get it checked out. We drove to the city and got in right away. They cut his cast off, looked at his foot, barely touched his toe and the first two questions out of the doctor's mouth were to Carey were: Do you eat red meat? (if you know my husband then this is a funny question since that is mainly what he eats 90% of the time!) and Do you drink protein shakes? (another absurd question since we have two buckets of protein mix in the pantry!). He immediately had a diagnosis of Gout in the joint of his big toe. Neither Carey nor I had heard of gout and obviously didn't know what it was. The doc was explaining it to us and said that it is more painful than the surgery would be! Well, we figured that out the night before!

The definition of gout is a disease created by a buildup of uric acid. In this condition, monosodium urate or uric acid crystals are deposited on the articular cartilage of joints, tendons and surrounding tissues due to elevated concentrations of uric acid in the blood stream. This provokes an inflammatory reaction of these tissues.

If you think back to high school, think about the cartoon like pictures in your history textbooks that showed Kings sitting on their thrones with an abnormally large big toe and a huge turkey leg in their hand that they are gnawing on...if you can remember that, they were showing that the King had gout. Apparently back then, the Kings ate better than their subjects (hence the red meat and protein products) and also had servants to wait on them hand and foot (the crystals build up in joints that are not very mobile)!

Anyway, the doc gave Carey some anti inflammatory for a week and put him back in a new cast. He is doing so much better now! He was in so much pain and unable to sleep at all. The past few nights, he has finally gotten some rest and slept quite peacefully! We thank God for that rest he has gotten!

Here are some pics of our unexpected trip back to the surgeon...

Starting to saw...

Don't saw his leg!!

The cast is almost off!!!

It's not too swollen!

24 Staples and a Major surgery later...

Scratch it while you can Carey!

Time to put the new cast back on!


He is definitely not happy about another cast right now!




Look what color it is!!

BOOMER SOONER!!!

Cast number 2!!


Please continue to keep Carey in your prayers...prayers for patience, understanding and obedience!

God Bless You!