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Here is an email my wife wrote to several of our`church friends on Wed evening. I’m home now and am pretty much confined to bed.
Hello everyone,
What a long long day. First off, if you feel lead to forward this message on to others, please do so. I’m so tired at this point, I know there are others that I wanted to send this to.
Joe’s surgery went well. We were at the hospital at 7 am for admitting into day surgery. They took him back quickly, then it was “hurry up and wait” time. Fr. Lawrence and Fr. Jeff from our church came out and blessed us both, which was great, and a huge emotional help to us. They took Joe upstairs at 9am, and I thought, okay, this is it, but the nurse came and got me again. More hurry up and wait time in a bigger room with more questions. Finally, around 10:15 (an hour 15 late) Joe was taken into surgery.
The doctor came out and talked to me, and said that the actual surgery lasted about an hour. Joe had a huge 4 inch cyst that was eating into the tibia bone. A sample was sent to pathology, but the Doctor felt that it was benign. He explained that he used bone chips and “bone marrow asperate” taken from Joe’s hip to fill up the hole. The bone marrow asperate is suppose to encourage new bone growth. He basically described cutting into Joe’s bone a little trap door, filling it up, and shutting it closed like a casket (his words NOT mine). This was a rare surgery.
Anyways, Joe is now in a full leg brace to keep his leg stable, and to keep his knee from bending. He will be in this brace for several weeks, this part is unclear, it depends on how his recovery is going. Joe got back into his room around 1pm, very groggy. He was feeling nausous, so they gave him more drugs for that along with good ol’ morphine. He was out for a few hours, during which I went home to get him some things, and to check on Samantha.
He was up a few times, but he needs to use a walker for awhile. They will be sending him home tomorrow with one, along with some more drugs for pain. After dinner, he did take a nap before his Phillies were on tv in the world series.
I have to say, we had some of THE NICEST nurses ever at this hospital. Not only were they caring of Joe, but they were beyond kind to me. This hospital was an icecube, and one nurse brought me a blanket. When Joe’s dinner came, they brought ME a dinner too. I didn’t ask for one, but they said, “Oh, this one’s for you too”. I teased Joe that this was our anniversary dinner as our 12th wedding anniversary is this weekend, but we cannot celebrate this year. What a way to get a day to ourselves. :)
I stayed until 8:30, and then had to get home. I plan on going back early tomorrow as it is unclear when Joe will be dischared.
Samantha had a wonderful day with her Grandma, and Grandma took care of her the entire day. They played “Doctor Who” toys for several hours, and didn’t even have to pull out all the art supply stuff that I had gotten as a distraction. Thanks be to God that Ellen came down, I don’t know what I would have done, as Joe really needed me with him.
Thanks to all of you who called today, either on my cell or at the house. Thanks also to all of you who were praying for us during the surgery. It truly helped to know that so many of you were keeping us all in prayer. Please continue to lift us up in prayer, as recovery is going to be hard.
Good night, and blessings to all of you,
Lynn

Hey gang. Just a reminder I won’t be around tomorrow, or much the next week or so. I’m having surgery to remove a bone cyst from my left leg (the tibia right below the knee). I’ll be in a hospital bed watching Game 1 of the World Series.
I’ve been ordered off my feet, and off a chair in front of a computer for awhile, so I have no idea what my update capability will be like. Hope to have some new posts sooner than later. :)
Some general info about the problem:
I have a cyst inside the bone just under my left knee. It’s what has been causing me so much pain lately. They were unable to 100% confirm that it was due to the fall I had a year ago, but he said it’s possible. The reason they don’t know for sure is because they would have had to have had a reference Xray from right before the fall. I saw the Xray myself – there’s no mistaking it, it’s quite noticeable in there. They’re essentially going to be clearing out the cyst stuff, and then effectively “filling it with cement”. That’s obviously not what they’re actually doing, but I’m a little unclear as I sit here right now what the material they’re going to actually be putting in there is, but they did use the phrase “bone graft”, which has an ugly sound to it. I was told they “don’t take stuff from your hip and put it in there anymore like we used to”, I believe it’s some sort of synthetic something, but again, I’m not sure. There’s some pictures and details about the condition and operation here:
http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=A00081