Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital issued the following announcement on Dec. 2.
Born with spina bifida, Glenn Gill has gone through between 20 and 30 surgeries throughout his 37 years of life. In adulthood, he developed diabetes.
An infection earlier in 2019 led to the discovery of Fournier’s gangrene – a serious development that required immediate surgery resulting in a large wound. He stayed at Memorial Medical Center for two weeks before he was released to Memorial Home Health Services and returned home to Lincoln.
“We had some very complex wound care to work on with Glenn, and though it’s not as common, we doubled up on nurses to work with him,” said Shelley Thomas, RN, Home Health Services. “I’m very grateful for not only our excellent on-call nurse team, but for Glenn and his wife who pressed on through many hurdles.”
Glenn and his wife, Jeanna, maintain busy lives. They raise two young children and foster an 8-month-old. The nurses from Home Health taught Jeanna how to patch leaks and change the canister of the wound vacuum when necessary.
Eventually Jeanna got to the point where she could let Home Health know what was working and what wasn’t and even diagnose potential solutions within the process.
“Between educating Glenn and Jeanna about optimal wound care goals, they rose to the challenge with their own brainstorming and creativity many times throughout his care,” Shelley said. “I was so proud of this patient and family for overcoming, for fighting and advocating for his care when needed, and for our home care team for making sure all was in place when we needed it to be for them.”
The biggest challenge for Glenn was not being able to work as a graphic designer during his recovery and not fully understanding how long the healing process would take. He wanted to be able to get out in the yard and play with his kids. But first he had to respond to a lot of in-home wound vacuum therapy and recover completely from his surgery.
Today, Glenn is back to work full-time. When he’s not on the computer designing and creating, he’s probably on the floor with his kids. They can sit on his lap now and love to climb all over him.
“It’s really good to get back to that,” Glenn said. “It’s great to be able to get up and walk again and do normal things like go to church. I’m feeling pretty good now health-wise and would recommend Memorial to anyone.”
For more information about Memorial Home Health Services, visit our website at https://www.memorialhomeservices.com/Services/Home-Health/Home-Nursing.
Original source can be found here.
Source: Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital
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