United States Marine~ Please help our brave warrior recover from the wounds of war – both visible and invisible ~ Update on Bradley Ivanchan

  

Brad Ivanchan In support of Bradley Ivanchan

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This is an update on Brad.

Bradly Dylan Ivanchan is a 23 year old Marine from 

Glendale, Arizona. He was wounded in Afghanistan on 

June 13th. He suffered injuries to his legs that
resulted in amputations of both lower legs. One above the knee and one below 

the knee. He also suffered other injuries over the 

left side of his body, although none are as 

serious as his legs.

 

June 20th,2012

Hey all, I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in the past few days. It's been pretty crazy and there have been a lot of emotions going through all of us in the Ivanchan fam. The good news is that Brad made it safely back into the US. He is currently at Balboa hospital in San Diego, California. He arrived there Monday afternoon. My parents and Brads wife, Sarah, drove out there Monday morning and have been with him since. We were all so relieved that he was home and that his spirits were high. His friends were over Monday night to sign a book we have for him and they were able to talk to him on the phone. They were all pretty relieved and happy to talk to him, as they have been worried sick, like the rest of us. He sounded good and upbeat on the phone. He even apologized for not being able to call sooner and talk to all of them because; as he put it "I've been busy". His friends had a laugh over that and they were all happy to see he was the same old Brad they know and love. Tuesday was a rough day. Brad went into surgery to change his bandages. It was supposed to be a routine surgery that has been done to him every day since his injuries. When he got out of surgery my parents were told that surgeons had to take more bone from Brad’s legs. Due to the fact that his bones weren’t covered by muscle or skin they began to dry out. There were also signs of infection on his left leg. In order to remove the infection and to create enough muscle and skin to cover the good bone and create a “stump” as the doctors say, they had to take 6 inches from his left leg and 3 inches from his right. It was a devastating and shocking blow to Brad and us as well. Today he went into surgery to fix the brakes to his fingers on his left hand. His index finger sustained damage to the bone and knuckles. They say he lost 40% of his ligaments which could limit his movement, but it should be usable. He’s having a hard time eating and has lost a considerable amount of weight. He was a bean pole to begin with and has a hard time keep his weight up anyways so my mom says he’s pretty thin. Once the surgeries stop we are hoping he will put on some weight. His pain is under control but after he gets out of surgeries he is in a considerable amount of pain and it takes a while to get under control again. He still has his epidural but every surgery they mess with it and it takes hours for it to get working again after. When he sleeps he tends to wake up in a panic, thinking he is in an explosion. In his words it’s not PTSD but all of us are concerned. Today he was told that he has a virus. My mom wasn’t sure what the name was but she called it a “super-bug” because it is resistant to antibiotics. It is a lot like a staph infection she was told. Everyone who comes back from Afghanistan gets tested for these infections and viruses. They did a skin swab and it was found on his skin so they took tissue samples, but it takes 72 hours for the cultures to grow to determine if he has any infection in his legs or wounds. Apparently it is located in the dirt and soil in Afghanistan. When he was hurt Brad said that his entire left leg was submerged in the dirt and he had to dig himself out, so we are worried about that leg. All of us are pretty freaked out about the whole thing and Brad is really worried. He can’t afford to lose any more of that left leg. Tomorrow, Thursday, he has no surgeries scheduled! We are hoping that he will be able to relax and recover a little. If things go as planned they will close up his leg wounds on Friday, which will be huge because they will no longer be exposed. Overall he’s tired and overwhelmed. We all are really. Our entire family just wants to thank every one of you who have called, text, messaged, and donated or bought a tag for Brad. It means more to us than we can express. Some people have asked about donating money without buying a tag and if you would rather do that you can send checks to Brad to our house. The address is 5941 W. Michelle Dr Glendale, AZ 85308. We have an account set up for him but we don’t want to put the account number up online, so if you really don’t want to send a check message me on here with your information and I will send it to you. 
Again, thank you so much and I will try to keep everyone updated as well as I can. -

 Chelsey

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