A life saved!

It is hard for me to believe that coming up on three years ago, I was bitten by a little old spider in Africa and it would cause my world to go upside down.

I had the opportunity to talk to some of the GREAT folks at The Oklahoma Blood Institute recently and recount my story to them.  Here is the short version.  Bit by a spider on my way home from Kenya.  Being the macho man that I am I totally ignored it.  (I hate to admit it but I didn’t realize I had been bitten.  The bite is in the small of my back.  Not a place I go looking at in the mirror.  For those of you, like me, 50 and above will totally understand that. HA) Anyway, after getting back to the US, my back was sore.  I figured just an old dude and a bad back…little did I know IT had begun to grow.  Started out small, notice a small bump in the small of my back, more pain and discomfort as it began to take on a life of its own.  By the time I wised up to seek medical help, it was golf ball sized.  By the time I made my first ER visit it was the size of a tennis ball.  Next ER visit IT had grown more and that is when my lovely wife and my Doc (Dr. Jerry Childs-MY HERO!) decided that I should not return home.  Wise decision.  I don’t remember much after that until about week later.  Dr. Jerry and team have to breath life back into me, rush me up for emergency surgery and remove a massive hunk out of my back.  Several units of blood from the folks at OBI literally saved my life!

I spent a week in the hospital.  (I remember only the last 15 minutes, so should I have to pay for the rest of the stay?  Hospital didn’t buy my excuse either, they made me cough up the money.)  I spent the next 6 weeks on IV antibiotics to combat MRSA.  A NASTY thing you pick up in  hospitals these days.  After about three months of Wound Care from some of the best folks at Baptist Hospital in OKC I was declared OK!  the giant crater in my back was filling in nicely from the wound vac that they put in me.  SPOILER ALERT-WARNING if you are easily grossed out skip to next paragraph.  (Wound Vac a sponge in the hole, a tube from the sponge to the  vacuum that sucks the tissue so you grow back from the inside out. Sounds gross and believe me it is pretty gross looking at a giant hole in your back.   This is then all shrink wrapped and sealed up so that you have continues negative pressure pulling the tissue inside you to the surface.)

I won’t be wearing any speedo’s again for sure…not just the hole in my back, I would look like an egg with a rubber band around the middle.  It looks like someone took a 9 iron or sand wedge and took a nice little divot out of the small of my back.

All that said, I am so thankful to each of you who prayed for me, sent cards, and even dared to scrub up, gown up and come by the hospital (SIDE NOTE: I have no memory of ANYONE coming to see me-my girls tell me I was really crazy…as in crazier than most days. If I said anything to embarrass you I apologize.  If I mooned you with my great hospital gown I am really so sorry, I know you will be scared for life.)

All that said, I can’t give blood because of the places I travel.  You can!  See my friends at OBI, tell them Ken with the spider bite sent ya! Mine is a life saved because someone paid it forward by giving blood.  Please consider being a donor.

Thanks again for all the support and encouragement.

Here is a pic of me and some the children at an orphanage in Haiti we just drilled a well for.  I am wearing my “I am ALIVE” because of a blood donor t-shirt!