Joe Deer

On New Year's Eve, Joe got tangled up in our two dogs fighting. They wrapped around his walker and knocked both of us over. Joe landed on his left hip and broke his femur where the ball connects to the lower straight portion of the leg. 



His left hip is fully engaged in the metastatic lung cancer.  To further complicate matters, this is the same leg that had a compound complex fracture in 1968 from a motorcycle accident. That was ultimately repaired with a donor bone from a cow. His leg healed leaving a malformed femur.  In addition, back in the day, that leg had osteomyelitis, which is a nasty bone marrow infection, which could be lying dormant.  Add to that, his immune system is weakened due to chemotherapy and his lungs are impaired with COPD

So needless to say, the surgery is very complex.   He was supposed to have the surgery on 1/1/19 but they referred his case to their top Orthopedic surgeon who want working until 1/2/19.   

We are currently at Memorial Hermann at 6411 Fannin.  We are waiting for his oncologist to call back to discuss moving over to MD Anderson so his care team can be fully involved. 

He is in tremendous pain. He had a nerve block procedure yesterday that has helped somewhat. 

Brian is with us at the hospital.  Our neighbors are kindly taking care of the dogs.  He isn't really up for visitors at this time.