Brad Williams Bradley Williams

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Dad's journey started back in April of this year. As you all remember April was a month of snowstorms and a lot of moving heavy snow.  Dad was experiencing some pain in his left leg which he attributed to using the clutch on the tractor while he moved all that glorious snow around.  His first visit to the doctor reveled what was thought to be a blood clot in his thigh.  He has been on medication for blood clots since his pulmonary embolism about 4 years ago.  He was sent to Mayo Rochester to determine why this would happen since he had been therapeutic on his blood tests.  We made the journey to Mayo on Monday April 15th.  This was the start of it all. We stayed that night to have an MRI done the following morning.  Dad was experiencing such pain that we decided he needed to go the ER to have his pain managed.  He was found to have Atrial Fibrillation.  He was admitted to the cardiac unit at Mayo. The swelling in his thigh had increased as well as the pain. Surgery was called in the evaluate that and the MRI was done the next day.  The hematoma, which is what they were calling it, was consuming a large portion of his left thigh. A decision had to be made about how to treat that and the A-fib.  Surgery did not want to open the thigh up because of the risk of infection and the risk of increased bleeding as Cardiology wanted to continue him on the blood thinners to keep him from having further clots. The decision was made to keep him on the blood thinners and monitor the leg. He was discharged on the 22nd.

On May 29th he went in to his family doctor for a follow up.  His leg continued to be swollen and painful despite the fact that he had tried physical therapy and other measures.  A call was made to Rochester and he returned there on the 31st for a consultation and was re-admitted to the hospital with surgery scheduled the following morning to open the thigh to see what exactly was going on.  He remained hospitalized and underwent 2 more surgeries to evacuate the hematoma. He was sent home on June 8th with drains in the left thigh to continue allowing the drainage and hopes that the swelling would continue to go down. He was also continued on a low dose of blood thinners for the A-fib  
On June 15th he was readmitted to Rochester with pulmonary embolisms in both his lungs.  Pulmonary and Vascular medicine were consulted and Dad underwent an arterial angiogram of his left leg and coils were placed in a couple of suspicious vessels to try to control the bleeding. The drains were still in place. He needed to continue on blood thinners for the A-fib and the pulmonary embolism and was discharged on Xarelto on the 18th.  
Weekly trips to Rochester were made to re-evaluate the progress that was being made with the drains in place.  Dad had some days that were better than others,  Connie returned to work and Dad's fellow farming friends, neighbors and family visited and helped to raise his spirits.
On Sunday the 21st of July Dad came down with a fever and was not feeling well.  We took him to Fairmont ER where he was thought to be septic.  Another ambulance ride to Rochester (which he did not want to do as you can imagine).  He was admitted to the ICU and given antibiotics and other medications to control his heart rate and blood pressure.  The following Tuesday he was taken to the OR to open the incision of the left thigh and determine if the drain that was remaining had caused the infection.  His thigh was "drained and washed out" and a wound vac was placed.  His heart did not want to cooperate and the doctors worked to increase his low blood pressure and control his fast heart rate with different medications.  He remained in the ICU and was given blood as his hemaglobin was low.  On Thursday he returned to the OR for a "drain and wash out" and to re-evaluate.  This time the surgeon discovered a pocket of fluid and some classifications. Biopsies were taken. Initially the biopsies looked to be benign but after further evaluations it was determined to be a type of sarcoma.
Dad will continue to go through much more testing this coming week as a plan is made. We are all still trying to wrap our heads around all the information that we have. Please keep our family in your prayers.  We will update as we know more information.