11/08/2022
I know most are aware of this, but I wanted to update our business page with our last two months.
9/12 - We were to leave for vacation to the Dells with Luka, but overnight Drew had pain and some swelling on his arm. We went to the ER in Storm Lake, and they diagnosed him with Cellulitis and gave us some oral antibiotics. They said we were fine to go on vacation but if it got much worse to go to an ER.
9/13 – Drew’s arm was so swollen, and he was in so much pain. We went to the nearest ER in Baraboo, WI. They admitted him and started loading him up with fluids and antibiotics. Overnight, they moved him to the ICU because his heart rate was very high and his blood pressure was dropping.
9/15 – Drew was transferred to Madison, WI because his blood pressure continued to drop, and he was still tachycardic. They had been testing to see what virus was affecting him but so far no answers. We got here just in time because overnight he started to have troubles breathing and his organs were suffering.
9/16 – Drew was taken straight to surgery early on Friday because the surgeon came in and said they thought he had Necrotizing fasciitis which is a flesh-eating bacteria. The surgeon said this is limb and life threatening and that we need to get him to surgery as soon as possible. When Drew got back from surgery the surgeon confirmed that he had to remove half of the skin and fat from his right arm but he hopes he got it all. They had him sedated and on a ventilator to help him breath and recover.
They allowed Radina and I to come see him but soon Drew spiked a high fever of 105-106 degrees and his blood pressure dropped even lower. They told us we had to leave the room while they spent over an hour doing life saving measures. They told us to tell family to come because he was fighting for his life. Such a scary time for us all. Finally, after 2 hours they said he was still critical but that they had him stabilized.
9/17 – We were informed that some labs were showing that his infection might be spreading so they wanted to do a CT scan with contrast of his arm and abdomen. Since it was my birthday my birthday wish was for a clear CT. They also removed his wound vac and changed a medication that they felt could be causing this lab to go up. I luckily found out late that night his CT was clear and had not spread and by the next day his numbers started dropping again.
9/23 – After a delayed skin graft surgery on Wednesday, Friday was the day to do his skin graft surgery. They removed skin from both of his thighs, split it, and applied it to his arm. He did well with surgery and was still sedated with plans to start lowering sedation Saturday. They applied a wound vac to his arm and were going to be leaving it for 5 days before we would know how the graft took.
9/24-9/26 – Coming off sedation after over a week of it was rough for all of us. Drew was very confused, and they had to wean him slowly. Plus, he had a ventilator still and could not talk to us. He was too weak to write left-handed. Finally, by Monday he was fully weaned, and they removed his ventilator. YAY!! It was amazing to hear his voice and talk to him after 10 days of not being able to.
9/28 – The wound vac came off and the skin graft appeared to fully take so now it needed to fill in and continue to heal.
9/29-10/5 – We got moved to a regular room and started the process of applying to inpatient therapy. Drew needs OT for his arm and at the time was very week from being in the hospital for 3 weeks. Slowly he started building up strength so on 10/6 they sent us home to do outpatient occupational therapy.
10/10 – We had our first post op check, and they said it looked like it was healing well and we got connected with an OT in our area.
11/8 – Drew is still doing Occupational therapy in Sioux City 3 times a week. He is working on getting his movement back in his arm. He has improved so much but still has a bit to go yet. We appreciate everyone that has been put on a slight hold with your project being understanding and hope soon he will be up and running. We will never know how this started but are so thankful he is still with us.
For those of you interested we do have a Venmo set up brenna-stuhrenberg as well as an account and United Bank of Iowa named “Drew’s benefit account”
Thank you Drew, Brenna and Luka
