November 30 Dombai Medical Point

We tried to call an ambulance but the town did not have any. We tried contacting a doctor, but they said they were all on vacation. It was not yet ski season. None of them were working yet. After some deliberation, we decided to drive the several hours to the closest hospital. As we got in the van, one of the hotel workers told us that he had found a doctor. Praise the Lord!

This medical facility was something out of a cheap movie. It was one room with all kinds of bottles and boxes. The room was dimly lit and I was skeptical. First, my doctor Edward, cleaned the wound. He tore into my knee, trying to make sure infection would not set in. Then, he took a scalpel and trimmed away the dead and mangled skin. This created a clean cut for him to stitch together. Finally, he made four big stitches across my knee.

The picture on the left is Edward looking at the wound. The Next picture is Edward cutting off the dead and mangled pieces of skin.

This is what my knee looked like before he stitched it up. He made some huge stitches.

I just had to lie on that dang table while he wove my leg back together. I can't say that my knee looks good at this point.

Since that fateful day, I have now been to nine doctors. My knee became swollen and infected. I got my stitches taken out in Vladimir. That surgeon noted that I should have had two layers of stitches. The puss bubbles surrounding the knee got bigger. Infection raged through my knee.

This has been the evolution of my knee wound.

As you can tell, my whole leg is swollen. At that point, I was having trouble walking. This last picture was taken on January 19, 2007. As you can tell, I still have a long way to go.

After I got back to the states, I went to see a doctor and was prescribed heavy antibiotics. This helped but at some point something popped. I could not put pressure on my leg at all. For three days I could not walk. It was really weird, something popped again, and now I can walk again. I have a huge scab on the top of my knee cap. It is about two inches by two inches. It constantly oozes thick puss. I am not sure that it is healing correctly. I do still have pain. I can walk fine, but I can not run at all. Please pray that I don't have to have reconstructive surgery and that the infection and wound would heal.