Posted on 02/19/2015 2:08:55 PM PST by Citizen Zed
The state medical examiner says former Portland Trail Blazers player Jerome Kersey died from a blood clot that traveled from his left calf to his lungs.
The determination by the medical examiner Thursday came a day after Kersey died at 52. Kersey had minor surgery on his knee last Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nba.com ...
He always sat in the front row of our church. Had a nice family, way too early. He is home in Glory now.
The two great dangers after any surgery, however minor, are blood clots and infection.
That’s what killed my Dad right after knee replacement surgery. First night.
That was my first theory after hearing about his knee surgery..RIP to a great man and a great basketball player
That’s what I suspected, after I heard he had knee surgery earlier in the week.
Wow .. I guess I really dodged a bullet .. I had ankle surgery in 2010 .. my doctor kept telling me to be careful of doing certain things .. in order to avoid blood clots.
Did they prescribe blood thinners? I figured that was a standard thing for these kinds of surgeries.
Yes, I can’t remember how long a period of time .. but I do know I was given that medication.
Hospital for 3 days; Rehab for 3 weeks; Home Health for 2 months.
There's no such thing as "minor surgery".
Dang. Did your doctor make you do all that?
In 2001 I had reconstructive surgery to fix a complete fracture on my extreme lower tibia. It included installation of steel plates, screws and pins. I went home two hours after the surgery, returned to work (albeit on crutches) the following week, and was riding motorcycles again within a month.
Apparently I will have to take the injections for up to a year. They say that if I stay on the injections I should have little trouble with it moving to my lungs/heart/etc.
How was your blood clot found?
bfl
Dammit! A great player and a better person. I don’t think I ever saw him when he wasn’t smiling. Why do good people like him have to go while a$$holes like me live on? Life ain’t fair but this sort of thing is hard to take.
RIP Jerome. This world is worse for your passing.
Well, it was a little complicated .. in that along with a complete break at the ankle, I “shattered” (that was the doctor’s quote) all the bones in my left foot. I too have a metal plate on the outside and two screws on inside of my left ankle.
Because of all the broken bones in my foot, I was not allowed to be on crutches .. because on crutches you jar almost your whole body. The doctors didn’t want to risk the fragile state of the foot itself. It was more than a week before I was even allowed to be in a wheelchair by myself. Usually, the Rehab ladies would bring a chair and take me to the exercise room, or the shower. Otherwise, I was in my room with my feet elevated.
The other issue for me was a hyper-strain on my right ankle. I stepped in a pot-hole in a parking lot. It pulled the muscle so bad that my right leg was completely numb on the outer right side of that right leg. Basically, I could not walk until almost 3 weeks after the accident.
However, I was back to work in 3 months .. which my doctor seemed to think was a miracle in itself.
The worst issue was the swelling every time I was on my feet for more than an hour. Annoying. However, it is much less of a problem now .. and the only remnant for my right leg is the outside of my right thigh does get slightly numb when I’ve been standing (like in the kitchen cooking) for a fair amount of time.
I can understand the hospitalization then. You required a good bit more work than I did. I only had one metatarsal to reconstruct.
And having both legs out of action make mobility a real problem.
Did you get to experience the ‘joy’ of having pins pulled out the ends of your toes a few weeks after the surgery? In my case, that actually caused more pain than the surgery.
The only pins I have are just below the ankle bone on the inside of my left foot. They don’t seem to bother me, so my surgeon’s opinion is .. “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. He said I can have the pins removed if I want .. but if they’re not giving me any trouble .. then he doesn’t recommend messing with it.
The only issue I have is that I cannot rotate my ankle from left to right or vice versa. I can flex it up and down and am able to stand on my tip toes (which the doctor told me I probably never would be able to do).
And .. since my injury was a workers’ comp issue .. I no longer have dollars available to cover such an operation; and fortunately I don’t need to.
Before they found it, my left leg was swelling and a bit uncomfortable. The doctor then probed my belly and found the tumor and related the swollen leg to that saying that the tumor was blocking blood flow and there was probably a clot. He ordered a CAT scan which revealed both the tumor and clot. He put me on the blood thinner immediately which I have been on for about 2 months so far.
Thanks for the explanation. I hope you will stay well. I had a CT scan last year for swelling in my leg but they found nothing.
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