)

Protect your ass is the number one (#1) rule! 

If you don't remember anything else, remember this!

11/23/2009: It took me almost 10 years to get my first pressure sore and I am still fighting it today --more than 2 years after I got it. This will change your life for the worse. Trust me! I used a Jay2 cushion for over 10 years and just the year before last got my first pressure sore. The cushion protected me this long so I stayed with what worked. I stay in my wheelchair for 12+ hours a day with virtually no pressure relief (my bad!). I was on a device called a Wound-Vac which pulls a vacuum on your wound and promotes healing. It really works. I was on it a little over a year and my wound which they called a Stage 4 wound had healed to about a Stage 1 I'm guessing. After I moved to Conroe, Texas I started going to Conroe Regional Wound Care Center and was doing Ok till about  August of 2008 when my doctor (I'm leaving my doctor's name out on propose) recommended I have a wound flap surgery to close it up. In October 2008 I was operated on by a plastic surgeon (I'm leaving his name out also) and sent back to a rehab unit to heal for 30 days. 2 days later I was advised the flap surgery was a failure so they performed another surgery the next day. 8 days later the stitches pulled out for no apparent reason. At this point the plastic surgeon said both operations failed and he had no explanation why and said I should just go home and continue wound care as I had in the past. The problem was by now I had lost all my strength because I was ordered to lie flat on my back for weeks and now I could no longer transfer or do much without help. After I gained strength at home, I continued to get wound care up to 2/27/2009 when I reported I was sick and felt I had an infection. My doctor dismissed it as a common UTI and two weeks later I had full-blown MRSA staph infection which deteriorated my wound greatly causing new wounds I never had before and old wounds were enlarging. I decided to get a 2nd opinion since my doctor ignored my warning signs of prevailing infection. To make a long story short this was jumping out of the pan into the fire. This other wound care facility treated me for a few months and ordered a bone scan which revealed I had osteomyelitis, a bone infection, which prevented my healing.  My previous doctor had never ordered this test or even considered it.  I was getting better slowly when the 2nd wound care center advised doing hyperbaric chamber therapy and said that was the only thing that would cure me (my osteomyelitis). I did this for 3 days only to be told it was not covered by Medicare since they were not a hospital-affiliated wound care unit. They never checked to see if Medicare would pay before advising me of this treatment. This attending physician denied care since he could not get paid from Medicare for this hyperbaric treatment and falsely accused me of undermining my wound care through my wound care agency.  This wound care center relied totally on the hyperbaric treatment (for which they made their money) and never prescribed an antibiotic or other medicine to heal the osteomyelitis.  I had only one option at this point, since no one else would take me, and that was to drive 30 miles (one-way) to the only other wound care center in my area that would take me.  I've been at this wound care center for several months and finally have a doctor who knows what he's doing, so my future is looking much better these days.  This doctor has prescribed antibiotics and is periodically testing to see if the "osteo" is cured.  He also advised me to get on a better cushion which would relieve pressure.  I have tried for several months using the Roho cushion which was much better for me than the Jay2.  I am now waiting on an alternating pressure cushion which I am told will relieve all pressure, and I'm hoping by the testimonials I've read that this will also improve my healing.  I'm probably still several months from being healed/cured, but at least things are finally going in a positive direction.  However, all this took over 2 years to happen, so watch your A**!