Just because Sybil and I are out frolicking in the South Pacific, couldn't leave you guys hanging. So while I'm gone let's do what the syndicated radio shows do. Yeah, a little "best of ..."
I'll post some of my favorite stories from the past and before you know it I'll be back live and in living color with tales from abroad.
Thanks again for your patronage, your patience and your understanding of my honeymoon sabbatical.
By Richie Whitt
Dallas Observer
March 4, 2010
Having survived diabetes, a lower leg
amputation, a hernia, kidney transplant and eight years in the National
Football League, this is merely a trifle on Ron Springs’
medical odyssey.
Simple surgery to remove a quarter-sized, sebaceous,
benign cyst from his left forearm? Just another mundane errand on life’s to-do
list.
“Don’t worry,” Springs tells his wife,
Adriane, on the afternoon of Oct.
12, 2007, “we’ll be home in time for dinner.”
And with that, at approximately 4 p.m., Springs is wheeled into a Medical City of Dallas’ Building A, third-floor operating
suite. Springs waits patiently in room No. 14 until he is greeted around 4:15 by plastic surgeon Dr. David
Godat.
“How ‘bout Stanford beating USC?” the doctor
offers on last weekend’s major college football upset. “Crazy.”
As Godat leaves for a short break in his
office before the scheduled 5 p.m.
procedure, Springs contemplates his pickle. He’s not exactly nervous, but
pensive. Anxious, even.
The problem area is more of a chronic,
necrotic wound – a by-product of diabetes – that’s been bugging him for months.
About an inch deep, it resides near Springs’ elbow, constantly irritating and
itching and sometimes secreting a thick, yellow, fungal discharge. It’s as
pesky as it is gross, but it’s about to be scraped to smithereens.
Springs, whose hands and arms have curled
into almost useless claws as a result of diabetes, seeks relief from a
contractures specialist, but Dallas’ Dr. Bo Frederick refuses to perform the
surgery until the potentially infectious spot is permanently removed. Eight
days ago Springs consulted Medical
City wound care
specialist Dr. Laurie Aten, who referred him to Dr. Godat.
The cyst was almost debrided twice in the
last week (once in Dr. Aten’s office and once in Dr. Godat’s), but on both
occasions Springs was unable to tolerate the pain despite Dr. Godat
administering a local anesthesia to the arm. Surgery is the last resort.
At 4:20
Dr. Joyce Abraham of the Texas Anesthesia Group arrives. She called Springs’ Plano home last night,
but since the couple was out to dinner at Luby’s she merely left a message
about today’s proceedings. She elects general anesthesia and prepares to induce
Springs via LMA (Laryngeal Mask Anesthesia).
Easing Springs’ mind is the fact that Dr.
Abraham and Dr. Godat have worked together in concert approximately 25 times
over the last three-plus weeks. His transplant and amputation surgeries were
performed without hiccup at Medical
City. And besides, he is
one of the hospital’s poster boys – a former Dallas Cowboys’ hero and a nationally lauded
recipient of the first kidney to change bodies from professional teammates,
donated by former Cowboy and close friend Everson Walls.
What could possibly go wrong?
At 4:37
Dr. Abraham places an IV in Springs’ neck, prepares a knockout cocktail of
Propofol, Lidocaine and Fentanyl, and commences anesthesia …
The cruel irony to this all-time
feel-good-to-fucked-up story:
Springs’ left kidney works just fine ...
