Paul Kelly

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.


We decided to begin a Caring Bridge site as a means of keeping family & friends near and far informed of dad's progress. Dad had knee replacement surgery on July 5th and had been recuperating at our home in Canton. Things were going well with therapy until about July 18 when dad began experiencing pain in his quad muscle of the surgical leg. He had a post-op appointment with his surgeon on July 19. They believed the pain to be muscular, so dad continued with his exercises & therapy as he could tolerate them. By Saturday, July 23 we noticed he was confused at times and the pain still persisted, in addition to a loss of appetite & overall weakness. On Sunday evening, July 24, we drove him to Avera ER in Sioux Falls. Upon admission dad's oxygen level was in the mid 60's. Almost instantly we had numerous medical professionals assessing him and working to identify the underlying issue.


Long story short, it was discovered that dad had a large blood clot above his new knee. In addition, he had a severe staph infection that had spread throughout his bloodstream, causing him to be septic. Thankfully, after days of culturing the staph, we learned that it was MSSA and not MERSA!! This was news we were relieved to hear! Dad went back into surgery on Tuesday, July 26 to have the knee cleaned out. They ended up replacing the plastic pieces in the new knee, as the infection had traveled to the joint.


Dad stayed at Avera from July 24 - August 2, when he was transferred to Sanford Canton-Inwood Medical Facility, to a swing bed.