Would you buy a 12 year old air chair??

[MoneyPity]

I just checked Ebay and they have a new Air Chair and a couple of used ones.

Search on air chair hydrofoil. I was bidding on one but it has 7 days so I dropped out at $300+

Good luck.

[MoneyPity]

Unfortunately my brother in law was involved in a dirt bike accident last week and had a compound fracture and a third break in his lower leg along with broken bones in the ankle and foot.

He is not sure what happened. He had just cleared the woops section and had a small downhill jump and he was found by other riders on the downhill side. He thinks that the throttle bound up so when he gave it some throttle so he would land in the flats right after the down hill. All he remembers is the bike flipping and when tried to sit up his foot was pointed in the wrong direction.

The leg fractures were not a major concern in surgery. His ankle and foot injuries concerned them and at one point it looked like he might loose the ankle. For the next two weeks they will have a county nurse visit him once a day to change the dressings and to report how the ankle was healing. They are concerned that because it was a dirty wound, that even though they cleansed it up as best as they could there is a possibility that the ankle becomes infected again.

If the infection starts again the will open the ankle and clean it again after it has healed a little. He will then go on a more potent antibiotic to fight infection because if it continues to look bad they are concerned that he may loose the ankle. We are praying that the next exam on Monday will show that the infection has been controlled and that he will be put the leg and ankle in a full fiberglass cast. He won't be able to apply pressure to that leg for 8 weeks.

His boating season is kaput for most of the season. He will be house bound for 8 weeks maybe 9 so I am going to borrow one of his sky ski foils on our BullShoals trip and go from there.

[dogbert]

Dude, that sucks. Watch out for MRSA. One of my kids had a really bad compound fracture in his arm from a playground accident. It took them weeks to nail the antibiotic cocktail that would kill the MRSA. He ended up having a fungal infection, too!

[dingleberry]

Wow, Moneypity, that sounds like a long recovery process for your brother in law. Hope it goes smoothly and he recovers completely.

[MoneyPity]

Dude, that sucks. Watch out for MRSA. One of my kids had a really bad compound fracture in his arm from a playground accident. It took them weeks to nail the antibiotic cocktail that would kill the MRSA. He ended up having a fungal infection, too!

Wow, Moneypity, that sounds like a long recovery process for your brother in law. Hope it goes smoothly and he recovers completely.

Yep It sucks that he crashed and tore himself up. The families are very concerned about him and secondary infections. His skin is blistering near his ankle breaks and that they may have to do surgery on the ankle to clean the wound again and pump him full of antibiotics. We will know more tomorrow afternoon after he comes back from a checkup with the orthopedic surgeon.

We hope for him that he does not get infections that are hard to beat back. We will know more tomorrow but because of the number of bones that need to heal and the plate in his ankle 8 weeks to recover is just to get out of a full leg cast and doesn't account for rehab.

He sold his dirt bikes 5 years or so ago so all of us thought between his passion to waterski, riding his skyski and just hanging relaxing at the sand bar, that dirt biking was history.
We were all mistaken. Unfortunately he is a hotdog and pushes it when he shouldn't. It seems that at 47 he would of out grown Moto Cross riding.

A buddy lent him a Yamahopper for the weekend and it all kinda sucks from there. He was riding on a semi pro course when he flipped the bike.

He has an Immaculate 1999 Mastercraft Maristar Sport and other than typical swim platform wear and tear it still looks great. The Maristar has two front buckets vs. the wrap around common to most inboards. Normally he has that boat on the water from mid-May and on but with the below normal temps neither of us have taken the boats out.

He had plans to stay at our favorite resort on Bullshoals Lake but that was so unlikely my sister canceled the reservation.

All we care about right now is that he can recover mobility and strength in the leg he broke. It is the leg he uses as the front leg slaloming. He might be able to ride the SkySki in late September if he doesn't hot dog it.

All in all tis is a crappy thing to have happen but if he learns from this that he is mortal then maybe it will work out for the best.

[dogbert]

Well, hope he gets better soon.

[MoneyPity]

My brother in law went to see his surgeon yesterday and they are very concerned regarding his ankle is still not healing and continues to ooze blood.

They fear that he may have a dirty infection and that it is not healing. On this coming Monday they will determine if the are going back in surgically to find cause of it not healing or going with a different round of antibiotics.

Either way he is basically on a bed or in a wheel chair. He is by trade a tool and die machinist but they have him reviewing drawings and CAD designs and design programs while in wheel chair.

Bottom line is this season will be over before he has a permanent cast at the current setback rate.

What a way to loose a boating season. When I was still dirtbiking I lost 2 seasons in a row and far as skiing or tubing but I could swim when I pulled my lower back in a crash and 6 weeks when my collarbone was healing.

[MoneyPity]

I haven't updated the status re: my brother in law since the end of June. We are now 2+ months later and his injuries to his foot and the fractures in it are not healing. He still has not quit bleeding in his foot so between having a drain and anti biotic cocktails his foot is in terrible shape.

Part of this long healing process is his fault because he will not stay off of his feet etc. causing the surgery wounds to not heal because he is stressing the staples and the basic healing process.

The family's #1 concern is what limitation should he live with and make them personal rules that no matter what he needs to live in those boundaries otherwise if he keeps screwing with it because it isn't healing his Doctors are concerned that he may loose his foot because it is basically still a dirty wound. Life sucks and is even worse if you don't listen to who is committed to get the foot to heal but .........

[MoneyPity]

It has been about 16 weeks ago that my brother in-law had his crash on a dirt bike.

His injuries to his ankle still have not healed and continue to drain. His ankles skin looks like skin that was grafted like they do with many burn victims. Early last week the tried to get other orthopedic advice and possibly treatment because the orthopedic that took his case from the ER is out of plan and racking up the bills.

As it turns out no other orthopedic surgeon will work on him. He now has drainage from 2 areas of his ankle and it is definetly infected again.

He is undergoing surgery tomorrow to clean the areas infected and if his bones in the foot have started to fuse the will remove the plates they put in because they think the infections are his body rejecting the hardware.

The main concern is the infection and the possibility if they can't control it he may loose that foot and possibly his leg.

Definetly not a good sign.

[MoneyPity]

We have a conference meeting with my brother in law's doctors tomorrow to determine next steps. At this point because the infection has reduced his lower tibia diameter by over 50% my brother is possibly facing an amputation just below the knee.

They have finally have identified the infection so they can stop the infection from destroying additional bone mass but they now have to determine if the tibia is infected internally and if so how much of it is affected As well as the amount of other bone loss where the bones are dead.

We are hoping they can save the tibia, but if they need to amputate we hope it is below the knee so with a prosthesis he still might be able to ride his foil.

At this point even if they can save the foot he will have very limited mobility of the ankle and severe pain once arthritis sets in.

What we are praying for is that the current antibiotic can stop the infection so that the surgeons can save as much as possible. We never in our minds thought this would drag on so long.

Kind of a bummer We used to make an annual trip together to Bullshoals but he may have to sell his Maristar Sport to cover some of what insurance is not handling.

Even now the family is hoping for the best and will try to remain positive with my brother depending where this goes.

It has been one bad year. My Brother in-laws crashed killed the June Bullshoals run.

In July my wife came dow with pneumonia and was lay-ed up for 3 weeks.

Our daughter is a physical therapist who a heavy set patient grabbed her as he attempted to get out of bed and this resulted in damage to ligaments and bone surgery. There went August and September.

Our dark shadow kept with us. My father in-law was hospitalized for heavy bleeding in his GI track which due to loss of blood that bled out internally he suffered a stroke in the middle of all of this at the nursing home.

we hope like hell 2010 turns around or I will sell my 20V at rock bottom price since I am on Long Term Disability until 3/1/2011 and the hunt so far has not been good. I want out of product development snd would consider an offer where I was out of senior/exec management.

We seem to be on an endless SNAFU from hell cycle.

[dogbert]

Not good news about your brother in law...

[MoneyPity]

No, each day right now is dreaded because they keep finding where the infection has caused havoc in the damaged leg. The orthopedic surgeon at this time thinks that he has a 80% chance of loosing leg below the knee if when the do more specific blood draws from the affected area.

I will be spending the next couple of days trying to be able to get his computer networked to one at hos office because he needs to work so the company he works for survives but it has to be done where he does not attempt to work on the tool and die shop floor programming CNC machines.

The situation between him and his dad having a stroke just plain sucks.

It is a b_tch because we have assisted in his healtcare for over 6 months and we just cannot get over the top.

[Domsz06]

Did he have MRSA? There is only one drug that will kill that, and he needs to get on it if he still has his leg. I lost mine to it, don't let him have the same issue.

[MoneyPity]

Dom,

I am not sure which infection he has. They had it controlled and things were looking better but the infection came back in full force last week.

It is hard to get from him and my sister updates because my brother in law used to be on his own silver platter where nothing bad happened to him so now that he is in major support need he won't accept help. I was going to bring home his Mastercraft and Winterize it and then haul it back to our Indianna lake and he would'nt take the offer, went out and did it himself and now he is back to the same infection and they cannot find the source. He is back in an isolation boot and another round of antibiotics but the soutce is one of many bones in his foot that are places the infection can hide, incubate and put him days away from having to go to hospital. My wife and I spoke to his doctors since she is his legal guardian and the odds are not high to beat this back. It has already cause the lower bone (tibia?) to loose half or more of its diameter which could turn into simething even worse.

The family is under the assumption that he will loose the foot by time all is said and done but now we are worroed about the leg.

To make matters worse 8 weeks ago his father fell and passed out and it took 3+ hours to revive him. Somewhere he picked up a CDIFF infection that laid him up and his body was shutting down due to the intensity of the infection. His infection was out of the system and came back when he was to be released from the nursing home. THe CDIFF affected all his motor skills so now he is home and we are trying to deal both getting some sort of home health care 3 days a week so that I can pick up he other 2.

I am re-applying for Long Term Disability. My employer does not feel that I can handle the job and when I am on the meds I cannot drive or do anything business related. So they have insisted that I request to go back on it. So I am going to take a significant reduction in income and it may turn out that in 2010 I will have no choice but to sell my 2007 Tige 20V unless I can find something that will help with the mortgage. Along with LTD I am allowed to take on part time work to a pre-defined amount

It was a horrendouse 2009 starting with my BIL, My fathers issues, my cluster headaches attacking with a vengeance, and finally my father in-law. We sish we could get a refund on 2009 becuase it sucked. I am going to keep the 20V until I return from what may be our last boating vacation in July but plans to add an FAE and transom lights are put in the trash. If I am forced into selling I won't replace her.

I know you also went thru hell and our thoughts are still with you and your long term situation.

Thanks fot asking and I hope all is well or getting better with you.

jom A

[h2oaddict]

Personally, I would stay away for the hydroflight. There is a way to reverse shim the 'aggressive foil' so that it will stay down in the water. Just have to put a shim on the front side of the rear wing, he should also be able to slide the rear wing back and make it more stable.

Actually you would put shim on the back of the rear wing to calm down a hot ski. Putting it in the front of the back wing would make it even hotter. Other then that I completely agree with skyski_tige. You want a skyski...you want a billet skyski, And i would say you want the pro model to learn on. Yeah its 1500 but you can find a used one on foilforum.com for alot less and you will be able to get all your money back if you upgrade or sell. If you get hooked you will be upgrading. I started with a Pro ST, now have a LEX with upgraded front wing ( more money ) and just ordered an upgraded rear wing today.

But remember you can calm down any ski by shimming it so its not so hot for a beginner and you can try it out to get the feel. On foilforum youll find lots of folks that will take you out and let you try theres for free...and they can shim it so its nice and stable for you. Try it....you will love it.