An Update on Ryan

I have a few minutes so I thought I would give you a little update on Ryan and the complications he's been experiencing from his bone marrow donation back on November 6th! For anybody who's new to the blog here's a bit of the story....my husband Ryan donated bone marrow to an anonymous woman with leukemia back in November (he's on the bone marrow registry). As soon as Ryan woke up from surgery he was in excruciating pain. It felt like his left leg was in a horrible cramp. We left the hospital the next day continuing to think that it was just a really bad cramp from the way he was positioned during the bone marrow harvest. Over three months later Ryan is still experiencing significant pain. He has been back to George Washington University Hospital several times and they seemed to think that he just had some swelling around his sciatic nerve. They did check to make sure that he didn't have a blood clot in his leg and he did not. They prescribed some narcotic pain meds, a nerve medication and physical therapy. None of this has seemed to help. He is experiencing just as much pain today as he was back in November. It's been very, very frustrating for both of us. He walked into the OR in perfect health and came out with a significant medical issue.

Ryan finally met with a neurologist in our area and this doctor is going to start working with him so he doesn't have to continually make the trip down to GWU Hospital. The neurologist was able to give Ryan two different scenarios of what he thought happened during the bone marrow harvest. The doctor performing the surgery, Dr. C, either went all the way through Ryan's hip bone and hit his sciatic nerve on the other side or Ryan has some internal bleeding after the surgery and he has a blood clot near his lower vertebra. Neither scenario makes us feel too good! Ryan is scheduled to have an MRI to rule out the blood clot. If he does have a blood clot then it could result in another surgery. If Dr. C hit his nerve (which is the most likely scenario) then the nerve just has to heal. Nerves are NOT like muscles or tendons. It can take up to two years for a nerve to heal. This has been very discouraging for Ryan.

To be honest, I'm just MAD. I really am and here's why. On the day of Ryan's donation everyone having anything to do with bone marrow donations was in a big hurry. They were all flying out that afternoon to receive some big reward for their work. Dr. C was not the regular doctor who performed bone marrow harvests and I specifically remember her saying to me that she wasn't going to have an intern do the procedure with her because interns take too long and their slow about it. So she was going to have an RN scrub in with her to assist. Now don't get me wrong...I have nothing against nurses. Nurses delivered McKenna when there wasn't a doctor to be found and they probably did a better job than the doctor did! So I'm not upset about a nurse participating as long as they know what they're doing, which they probably did. But Dr. C's comment does lead me to believe that she rushed and didn't take her time. After the surgery Dr. C wasn't even going to come speak to us about the procedure. I had to request to see her which I think it weird. Most surgeons always come speak to the family afterward to let you know how it went. I remember Dr. C commenting about how difficult it was to get to Ryan's marrow because he had some much muscle to get through. She said her arms were exhausted from driving the needle into his hip bone over and over again (sometimes they do that up to 30 times for large donations). She just gave me the impression that she had to be really rough with him. Ryan was also put to sleep sitting up and then they had to flip him over onto his stomach. She told me they had trouble doing this because their weren't any men in the room. For pete's sake, page someone to come help you! Can you tell I'm just a tad annoyed???

So the next step in Ryan's recovery process is to have the MRI. I'll let you know how that turns out. Please pray for Ryan. Just pray that Jesus heals him. Pray that this doesn't take years to recover from! Just pray that this is resolved quickly.

Now that I've said all that I feel like it's important to share a few more things:

1. Ryan is way more gracious about this than I am! If he had it to do all over again would he still do it??? YES

2. We haven't heard anything about the patient, but that's probably because Ryan always forgets to ask.

3. I AM STILL AN ADVOCATE FOR BONE MARROW DONATION!! I still think everyone needs to be on the registry. My name is on the registry and if I got the call I would do it! I probably wouldn't let Dr. C touch me, but I would definitely do the non-surgical stem cell donation! Absolutely, without a doubt I would do it!

4. The National Bone Marrow Registry is paying for all of Ryan's medical bills. He has to get everything approved first and that's totally annoying because they're hard to get a hold of, but we haven't paid a dime for any of this yet. Praise God!

So that's the scoop. That was probably way too much information :) I guess the bottom line is that Ryan still really needs your prayers.

Specific Prayer Requests:

-That the pain in Ryan's left leg will completely go away.

-That they WON'T find a blood clot.

-That Ryan will begin to respond to the nerve medication.

-That Ryan won't become hooked on the narcotics they're giving him for pain.

-That Ryan would continue to stay positive and upbeat about all of this.

-In a nutshell, just pray for complete healing!

P.S. Thank you to all of my sweet friends who have continued to ask and email to find out how Ryan is doing! You're such a blessing to us!