Great Timing Will... :)

Hello Again...

I just wanted to take some time and update all of you on the happenings of the Hill household over the past few days.

Friday night, Will was playing softball. He was running from first to third and when he rounded second he felt his left foot "pop". His left foot had been bothering him when he played for the past couple weeks, but we didn't think much about it. However, before we left for the field Friday night he did make the comment, "I think my foot knows when I am getting ready to play softball because it always starts hurting."

So, once we got him off the field I tried to assess his foot but he was in a lot of pain and I kinda got the feeling it was definitely broken. We went to the Claiborne County Hospital ER (big mistake) to get some x-rays. The ER doctor verified that it was indeed broken and showed us the x-rays. To make a long, aggravating story short... the ER doctor told him to take it easy and it should heal in 4-8 weeks. Will had to ask for crutches, and apparently they do not give them out anymore so we had to get a prescription for some - which we couldn't fill because it was 9:00 on a Friday night! So...we drove to LMU and borrowed some from the athletic training department. Before we left the ER I asked the doctor if he thought we needed to follow-up with anyone and he said "No, he should start feeling better over the next couple weeks."

Well, I wasn't buying that! So, Monday morning I called around and finally got him an appointment with an orthopedic doctor in Knoxville. He told Will that he had two options... he could either be in a walking boot and crutches for 4-8 weeks and hope that the fracture heals (about a 50-70% chance) correctly on its own, OR he could have surgery and be back on his feet in 2-4 weeks. Well, obviously surgery sounded like the better option, but we didn't want Will to jump under the knife without a second opinion.

So... we went to a different doctor this morning and she recommended the same thing. She said that if she went by the textbook, the conservative treatment for this particular kind of fracture would be six weeks in a cast and on crutches, non weight-bearing - followed by six weeks in a walking boot - so 12 weeks total of immobilization. Or, she could do surgery and he could be walking on it in 7-10 days with total recovery time taking about 4 weeks.

So, since Lorali is probably going to be here in about 5 1/2 weeks, and Will really needs to get back to work ASAP, we have opted for the surgery. His surgery is tomorrow morning at 7:30. It should only take about 30 minutes. The doctor is just going to go in a put a screw in the fracture site. Coincidently, he had this same surgery performed on his right foot when he was in high school.

I will try to update this tomorrow to let all of you know how the surgery went. Wish him luck!!!