Brother Bear Report

[EAGLE]

Butterfly recieved this from Sister Carmen this morning. I know that she would want all of Brother Bears friends to know how he is doing so I will share it with you, his friends. As big as he is, Brother Bears heart is even bigger. It is my honor to call him my Friend and Brother. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Subject: Bear's Doctor Appt.



Greetings My FATC Family & Friends,



Over the last few months Bear's surgeon has been monitoring the healing process of his femur broken last November. Last month it was determined that it was not healing properly and his surgeon at Emory-Crawford Long referred him to a bone reconstruction specialist at Saint Joseph's.



The short version of the last few weeks is that we are scheduled for another surgery Wednesday, April 16th at Saint Joseph's Hospital. The doctor has a few options of how to approach the repairs but he won't know for sure until he gets "in there" and looks around.



It could mean a new hip replacement with a longer stem, new hardware for the femur and bone supplement or it could mean just re-bracing the broken femur with new hardware and adding bone supplement. There is just no way to know at this point.



Following Bear's surgery, he will have to be immobile for 2-3 months. During this time I will be working from home, and trying to get into the office in the evenings and weekends when Jeremy can stay with Bear. You will be able to reach me by email.



Please keep us in your healing prayers, especially Wednesday.



Much Love,

Carmen

http://www.warponycustoms.com/

Note: I removed the phone numbers she provided because I didn't get her permission to post this on the forums. You can go to their web site for more information.

[Butterfly]

UPDATE

Carmen Rose


Update: We found out today that the hospital where Bear's new doctor performs surgery (Saint Joseph's of Atlanta) is not in our insurance network. So we have postponed the surgery until we can get a waiver or a referral to another doctor who performs surgery at a hospital that is in our network.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. I will keep you posted.

Carmen

[EAGLE]

From Sister Carmen;

Better news this time. Dr. Raines nurse called today so I took the opportunity to tell her how anxious we were about this surgery and wondered why Dr. Raines had not referred us to Dr. Minter (correct spelling this time) first.

Amara said that Dr. Minter is leaving the practice soon and not taking any new clients, that was the only reason Bear was not referred to him in the beginning. But after our situation became apparent, Dr. Raines asked Dr. Minter if he would do the surgery if he (Dr. Raines) did the post-op and follow-up, and he agreed.

Bear still thinks this is the guy that took his drain tube out a little too aggressively, but like my friend said today, "Maybe they think removing a drain tube is like taking off a band-aide, the faster you pull it the less it hurts." (Bear would probably argue that point).

Anyway...we are firm believers in everything happening for a reason, so we are grateful for whatever this reason is, knowing that we are in good hands whenever Dr. Raines is close by.

Our appointment with Dr. Minter is scheduled for next Wednesday. I will keep you all posted.


Love,

Carmen

[KISS]

Hope everything goes well for Bear !!!!!!!!!

[gaston 2005 502]

As stated above, hope everything goes well. Prayers sent.

[EAGLE]

UPDATE,

Sent: 4/23/08 6:48 PM
Subject: Surgery set (again)

Hello Everyone,
We arrived back home around 6:00 pm tonight after a 3 hour wait to see
the new doctor. Apparently someone forgot to put us on his schedule.
The update is that we are now schedule for surgery on May 5th (post-op
on 4/29).

This doctor has a similar plan to the one at Saint Josephs, except that
he wants to put a longer brace in and possibly 2 cadaver braces front
and back of the femur along with bone supplement. He was also
considering implanting a bone stimulator to assist in the healing. (I think
this comes out later)

He said he did not want to replace the artificial hip stem unless it
was absolutely necessary, so lets hope he doesn't see a need for that.
Either way, he said it would be a long and difficult surgery.

Bear seems to be a little happier with this doctor (even though as it
turns out, it was the guy who jerked his drain tube out).

Keep us in your thoughts & prayers. I will try to keep you all posted
following surgery but up until then I will be pretty busy getting
things ready for billing on May 1st and Jeremy's prom & graduation. So don't
worry if you do not hear from me until after the surgery.

Much Love,
Carmen

[EAGLE]

CRAP!!!

ALCON,

Subject: Surgery delay & update (yes, again!)

I know most of you receiving this email are going to think I have gone absolutely mad.... well you are right. Totally and completely insane, so please do not hold me responsible for the next 3 weeks for anything I say or do.

I spent the day yesterday packing up my office at FATC and getting ready to move everything to the house so I could work at home following Bear's surgery on Friday

I drove Stephanie to Rabun Gap Auto to pick up her car and was headed back to the office when Bear called. He had a message from Dr. Minter's assistant. It appears that Dr. Minter, in a rush to complete all his surgeries before he leaves the practice, has exceeded the number of surgical hours per month that are allowed at Crawford Long. So his assistant was calling to cancel Bear's surgery for Friday. According to the phone call, our primary doctor has offered to give Dr. Minter one of his surgery days in June, June 4th to be exact, right in the middle of chaotic, back-to-back fiscal year end billing.

After several calls to the owner of FATC and the Field Supervisor that helps me with billing, we have decided to train one of the therapist who some times helps us, to do my part in the billing. I will be billing Saturday, May 31st through June 3rd and unless there are changes (God forbid) we will be having surgery on June 4th. Then when the second round of June billing comes on the 9th, they are going to try to do it without me as we will probably still be at the hospital.

Last week after feeling a bit over-whelmed I took Thursday and Friday off to get my head straight. Had a nice weekend and spent a nice Mother's Day with both the boys. I went back to work feeling ready to conquer the week and get the surgery behind us and BAM! Surgery postponed. So to say I am a little frazzled is the understatement of the year. If there are any psychics out there that would like to speculate what this most recent turn of events is all about, I am all ears.

I'll try to keep you all posted, but I even feel silly writing this now because chances are something will change before June 4th!

Oh, and the cookout we were going to do for Jeremy and his graduating classmates has been postponed. We postponed it when we thought Bear was having surgery on Friday, and even though surgery will be after graduation, I will have to do billing that Saturday, May 31st, a day early in order to get it completed before June 4th. We hope to reschedule the cookout before they all leave for college.

Carmen

[EAGLE]

ALCON,

Here's the latest report froom Sister Carmen. CRAP AGAIN?!?!?!?!?

Sent: 6/5/08 8:09 AM
Subject: Bear Update

Here is the current status of our ever-changing, sometimes chaotic, never boring life:

Amara (Dr. Raine's assistant) called yesterday. She explained that since Dr. Minter (the specialist) was leaving the practice, another surgeon with Resurgeons had to be present for the surgery (in other words, they could not use an agency surgical assistant like Dr. Raines always does). It only made sense for it to be Dr. Raines as he would be doing the follow-up.

This is why when Dr. Raines had the family emergency with his mother, the surgery had to be canceled. As to the karmic reason for the surgery being canceled, that is still a mystery (to me anyway) but as our dear friend Jerry Wright reminded me, "We are not the one's in charge here. The Creator is watching over us and He will guide us through this process." (Thank you Jerry for the reminder)

Amara indicated that she was waiting to hear back from Dr. Raines. Apparently a special request (if this is even possible) must be made to the hospital/O.R scheduler by the doctor himself to make any exceptions to the O.R days Dr. Raines already has claim to. As the schedule is now, June 20th is the next available day. Dr. Raines is supposed to be back Monday and hopefully we will know more then.

Thanks for your patience & loving support, Carmen

PS... I still get your emails even though you may receive an automatic response. I will let everyone know when I am in Atlanta so you know when I may not be getting your emails