Okay, I'm talking about my husband here, he's had 4 total knees in about 8 years time. he is large, he has bad arthritis and somehow managed to tork his joints and they would start to come lose. The last one was done in March 2005..in December 2005, he started suddenly having excrutiating pain and a trip to the ER told us he "sprained it"..ya right, he knew he hadn't, so we went to the OS that afternoon and he aspirated the knee and drew out TOTALLY WHITE fluid, obviously infected. Surgery the next day to wash out, because they believed it had cropped up so suddenly, surely it wasn't in the bone, etc. Unfortunately, hubby had been taken methotrixate for his arthritis pain and this is a drug that hides infection and inflammation and reduces your body's ability to fight infection...great....so during this time of hospitalization and IV antibiotics following the washout, he started holding LOTS of fluid, then his kidneys shut down, then they decided his sleep apnea had caused his heart to be really enlarged and then he got pneumonia..it was bad, he almost died. One doctor said it was "septic shock", others think it was organ failure due to the lack of oxygen at night (for many many years) due to the sleep apnea. Now he has a trach, so he can breathe at night without his CPAP machine..but the trach is a pain too. Okay..so all this time they get side tracked with his other issues, and the knee is killing him..still hurting, still swollen, still big..but not necessarily "hot" or "red" and lab work doesn't look bad, so they wait several more months. Aspiration attempts weren't getting any fluid out this time. April 11, 2006, the go back in, it is very infected in the tissues, same MRSA..this time they take the joint out, put in antibiotic spacer,put him on IV antibiotics for 8 weeks..now we are at the end of the 8 weeks..his leg is HUGE..it has gotten more huge in the past 2 weeks than it was during the first 6 weeks after surgery...they aspirated this week, only got a few drops of blood out..will culture by Monday and he is on the surgery list for knee replacement..I'm scared...it does not show in lab work, they were unable to aspirate infectious material before when it was infected...I just don't know how they can be sure, and the fact is..they can't....anyone else on this merry go round? I'm in my 40's, he's in his 50's and we still have young children at home..I'm afraid we are headed for more and more of this and possible amputation too..He's a drummer..so that would break his heart..
