Openbah / Journal of a Marine Officer Candidate

Category: Marines

  • 2 week follow-up appointment

    Had my 2 week follow-up appointment with my surgeon in Englewood, NJ. A set of x-rays were taken, which were unremarkable. Next the 59 staples in my leg were removed and replaced by steri-strips. It feels great to have them out.

    Finally, my doctor came in and did a quick assessment of the incisions and of the leg. He said other than the pink area at the top of the hip incision, things looked great. He gave me a new antibiotic prescription, and after a 5-minute conversation about narcotic addictions, wrote me another prescription for Percocet. I see him again in 6 weeks.

  • Some incision photos





  • Surgery went well

    Sorry it has taken me a few days to update you all on my surgery. I’ve been a bit out of it.

    I was in the OR for 11.5 hours, I know, really long time. The docs said things went very well.

    They cut out about 8″ of fibula, thinned it down a little, cleared the dead bone and arthritis from the hip, drilled a hole in the hip, inserted the fibula, and connected the blood vessels microvascularly. Yea, pretty intense.

    The immediate recovery of the surgery was a little rough, I was in tons of pain, but thankfully don’t remember much. Since getting moved to a room, the pain has been manageable, except for yesterday afternoon. I’m still on a lot of morphine.

    I ran a fever all yesterday, but since this morning its been a-okay. I’ve had a little bad luck with roommates, but I moved this afternoon and this new one seems good.

    I’m taking my time with physical therapy and with getting off the morphine. I’m trying not to rush thing like I did the first time. I stood up out of bed for the first time this afternoon.

    I’ll update you all again soon. Thanks for the emails and phone calls!

  • Surgery tomorrow

    I’m leaving for NYC in 15 minutes. My mother and I are driving in and staying at a family friend’s condo in Manhattan. My father will drive in tomorrow morning.

    This past week my stomach has been in a giant knot. It seems no matter how relaxed I pretend to be, it is a true tell of how nervous I actually am. My parents are naturally even more nervous than me.

    I have to show up at the hospital at 7:30AM. After I’m admitted, I need to get a set of x-rays. Then it’s surgery time.

    This could be it. This could be the last surgery I ever have on my hip.

  • Surgery date of March 14th finalized

    I got a call from a resident at my surgeon’s office today. My new surgery date is March 14th. I feel confident that it will not change again. He explained why they’ve been changing the dates. The first time was because they had too many surgeries scheduled that day and wanted more time to spend on my surgery (6-8 hours). The second time they changed the date was because the doctor wants to be around after my surgery in case something comes up and they need him to be there. The resident I spoke to said if it were him having the surgery, he’d want to have it on the 14th.

    This is a big relief for me. Yeah, the surgery isn’t until 18 days from now, but at least it’s a definite date. Not knowing was really stressing me out.

    At this point I can expect to get off crutches sometime in the middle of September.