Thankfulness Series, Entry 1
Read: Proverbs 18:24
Well, Charlie, it’s been a while, but to my dying day, I’ll never
forget the time you and Jack came to McLaren Macomb Hospital and
yucked-it-up with me in the surgical waiting area all afternoon and
well into the evening on January 2, 2015 while a surgeon worked on
Jeri.
A year after a bad car crash, she took a bad fall while learning to
walk on her new legs. Jeri needed a total hip replacement, no big
deal, however, she also needed to have her right femur straightened
out. It was compound fractured in 2 places a year prior and bone
splinters caused it to heal badly. Additionally, her left femur which
was also compound fractured in 2 places had lost 1-1/2” in length
due to missing bone fragments so her legs were way out of sync and
walking was always a safety hazard.
What the surgeon didn’t know was that her bone density was severely
diminished, he said later it was like working on frozen butter rather
than a bone. He had to cut her femur into 4 parts, remove one piece
1-1/2” long and reassemble the remaining 3 parts to align exactly
with her left prosthetic knee and thigh bone which had already been
replaced. All this while considering the extra effects of an
amputated leg below the knee he was working to save.
The operation was scheduled to take about 3 hours. 5 hours into it,
we got word the hip was done, and the femur work was about to begin.
After about 9 hours it was done. In all that time, Charlie and Jack
never left, and they kept me from coming completely unglued many
times.
So here you go, Charlie. If ever you’re feeling extra blessed, it’s
because a casual friend never misses a day of thanking God for Jack
and Shirley, because they gave me a friend, Charlie, who is like no
other.
Ron Draper
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