Homerun
Date: February 23, 2008

Mike had made a promise he intended to keep: He would not let his recent divorce interrupt tossing the baseball with his 8-year-old son this spring.
When a painful infection suddenly appeared on his ankle, Mike didn’t realize his wound could possibly stop him from keeping his promise. At first, Mike self-medicated and went to work as usual, but within days he was in excruciating pain. He could not even pull his jeans on over his ankle. His father insisted he go to the hospital.
Floyd nurses Sue Wright, Traci Tillery and Susan Riley saw Mike’s leg and asked first for an orthopedic consultation. With the orthopedists in surgery, the nurses asked for a vascular consultation, knowing Dr. Mike Rogers was on call.
“I’ve worked with Dr. Rogers for 12 years, and he is the most consistent person I have ever worked with,” she said. “You can always count on him to do the right thing.”
Dr. Rogers confirmed Sue and Traci’s suspicions. Mike had necrotizing fasciitis–flesh-eating bacteria that can advance at a rate of one inch per hour.
“He came out of the patient’s room and said, ‘I don’t know if we are going to be able to save this leg,’” Sue said.
Dr. Rogers ordered immediate surgery.
Over the next 8 days Mike endured several more surgeries to remove the bacteria and stop its march up his leg.
“It was almost like we were in war mode,” Sue said. “It was like it was Dr. Rogers versus the infection. This thing was five days ahead of him. Could he catch up?”
Mike knew amputation was a possibility.
One day, when his son had come to visit, Mike told Sue and Traci about his baseball vow.
“I promised him this summer that we would play baseball,” Mike told them. “I told him I was sorry about the divorce and that everything would work out, that we are still going to be buddies.”
Mike then asked a painful question: “How am I going to be a father if I don’t have a leg?”
Sue reassured him, but added, “We are not going to talk about that. We are going to work on this leg.”
“It was almost like something spiritual was guiding us to the right place to make sure that he could keep that leg,” Traci said.
For the next two weeks, Dr. Rogers drafted a league of Floyd teams together to care for Mike. Dr. Rogers, Sue and Traci met daily for dressing changes, debridement and pain control, with Dr. Rogers insisting on overseeing the dressing and debriding Mike’s leg himself.
The hour-long dressing changes were painful, but Mike never complained–baseball season was coming, and he had a promise to keep.
After nearly a month in the hospital, including a skin graft, Mike went home on February 4–his leg intact and healing.
Before he left the hospital, Sue said the single dad left her with instructions: “Make sure you tell Dr. Rogers thank you, and tell him I will play baseball with my son this summer.’”
 Traci said she and Sue knew from the beginning that Mike was special, “We knew all along that with Dr. Rogers as coach, we could make a difference.”
What this team didn’t know was that they would be helping a dad keep a promise, and they hit a homerun in the process.

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