Spencer Update

So I'm going to update about Spencer. In case anybody doesn't know or don't remember, Spencer broke his ankle on February 21 playing ice hockey. On February 26 he had surgery done to fix his ankle. He had a plate and 12 screws put in his ankle.

During the surgery, the doctors put his leg on a metal stand to hold his leg up in the air to fix his ankle. They had just pulled the metal stand out of the sterilization machine, and so it was still kinda warm. A good analogy would be like leaning up against a warm car, you can only stand leaning against it for a little while before you had to move. Spencer couldn't move because he was under anesthesia, so his leg stayed there for an hour and a half to two hours. When he came to, he complained about his calf burning. The nurse just loosened his splint, packed ice around his leg, and gave him morphine. That's all they would do.

When Spencer got home, he pulled his bandages back a little, saw something, and wiped with his finger and pulled the top layer of his skin off. He of course freaked out, and when I got to his house after work, he told me about it. We went back to the hospital on February 27 and had the emergency room look at it. Everyone there was shocked that the hospital had burned Spencer. The hospital had us go back every day to get the dressings changed. The problem is that everyone kept telling us that it was just a second-degree burn and that it would heal by itself.

They had Spencer doing some crazy treatments. One of the craziest treatments was having him doing hyperbaric treatments. Basically he layed in a big tube and wasn't allowed to bring anything into the tube except pure cotton. Then 100% pure oxygen was pumped into the tube. He was allowed 15 minutes of normal air two times, and he was in the tube for about 2 hours. He had to do this every day for a couple of weeks. After one of the treatments, he was getting his bandages changed, and the doctor who looked at it was a volunteer from the University of Utah Burn Center. She sent him to the Burn Center and they told him that he had a third-degree burn and needed a skin graft.

So we learned that he had a third-degree burn after a month of treatment. Spencer's mom came out to Logan to be with Spencer when he got his skin graft. Spencer is now able to move around and do most things with no problem. He doesn't really have a calf muscle right now because the third-degree burn killed the nerve endings and penetrated the muscle. So when he got his skin graft, they had to cut out part of the muscle to get out all the dead skin.

Spencer is starting to play hockey again. Because he doesn't have a calf muscle, he can't jump after the puc, he has to shuffle along after it. Spencer has Seigfried and Jensen, the law firm, working on his case to sue the hospital. They have just finished building the case and have just notified the hospital that Spencer is suing them. If the hospital cooperates, he should have his settlement in about 3 months. If the hospital doesn't cooperate, it can take up to a year to get his settlement.

So here is the update on Spencer. Tada, hehe.