I got an email from Big Al saying that he just got out of a long term hospital stay (!!!) to find himself now unable to log in here. He has tried going through the normal channels to reset the login/password but has not been successful. Does anyone have any suggestions or a way for him to get a password reset? Is this something Matt G could help with? He asked me to post to see if anyone could help.

I just sent Matt a message through other channels; we’ll see if that works.

So relieved to hear that Big Al is ok; hadn't seen him around WTF for some time. Looking forward to hearing from him as soon as Matt resets his password for him.

Lisa, wtg, Nina, please see private message.

Al can read as a guest so he can see us all, he just can't log in to respond. Ax, the email you told me he used is the one he's emailing me from, so I assume that's the one he's trying to use. He did try to make a new user account but it would not let him since that email was already in use.

As you suggested, I told him to try the reset again.

Any other suggestions? I guess you can just post to him here since he is reading this, just can't reply!

I sent Matt a PM and a text alerting him to this thread. Hopefully he'll respond soon.

Hold on, Big Al!!

Update - Al says he is using the correct email address and WTF seems to recognize it as valid since it accepts it as an email for the password reset. But no password reset email ever comes to that address - he has checked his spam boxes etc and tried multiple times from different devices.

No response from Matt.

Let me check something else out.

I have done a few more tests and this is my latest hypothesis:

WTF's email function is broken, so no system email gets sent ... not for password reset, not for new member registration, no out-going email from the WTF system.

What this means for Big Al or anyone else who has lost his WTF password:

Sorry, without the email function working right, we have basically lost the ability to reset passwords.

What's the alternative to get back into WTF?

(And this is applicable to Big Al) Use a different email address to register as a new user, then use some other method to communicate your new email address to me. I will have to manually mark your email address as "verified" and manually "approve" your new user account.

Remember that the underlying WTF system has loss the functionality to send email and thus we have lost the ability to reset passwords, please so be sure to remember the exact password you used when registering your "new account" -- that's the only way you can log into your new account later.

I have reset Al’s password and sent an email to the account he used to register.

Thanks, Matt. I'm back in now.



Big Al

Hi Al! Great to see you!

How ya doin’?

And thanks, Matt!

In case anyone wants the gory details, here's what I've been through so far.

On Nov. 4th, I had a knee joint replacement done on my right knee. It seemed to be healing well and I was walking with a walker or sometimes just a cane by December. That's when things went very wrong. It started when the surgical incision completely reopened. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital where the plastic portion of the artificial joint was replaced, the wound washed out, and the incision stitched and stapled closed. I was put on an IV antibiotic and after 10 days sent from the hospital to a skilled nursing facility.

I had outpatient surgery during this time to remove a large escher that had formed on the front of the knee and further stiches put in place. When those stitches were removed later in January, a portion of the wound again reopened due to ongoing infection that the antibiotic had not eliminated.

At this point, the orthopedic surgeon determined that the new joint would have to be removed and an antibiotic concrete spacer put into its place. I went from skilled nursing to another hospital that the surgeon preferred and this was done along with work on the wound area by a plastic surgeon to try and eliminate the ongoing infection. After six subsequent surgeries to debride dead tissue, wash out the wound, remove my patela during one of the surgeries, and take cultures each time, and treatment with as many as five simultaneous IV antibiotics, the plastic surgeon determined that she could commence closing the wound, which was very large by this time.

She relocated a muscle from my calf into the wound and a second muscle from my thigh to close the wound. She had leeches applied to the thigh muscle for several days to promote vascularization of the relocated muscle. After both muscles appeared to be living in their new locations, she took graft tissue from my left thigh to do a skin graft over the muscles. During this time, I was completely confined to bed for seven weeks.

Once this all seemed to be healing satisfactorily, I was transferred to the hospital's rehabilitation institute to regain some mobility followed by another two weeks in skilled nursing. My right leg is in a brace that extends from around my waist to my foot and cannot bear weight so I'm presently restricted to a wheelchair to get around. I was discharged on Monday a week ago and am now at my daughter's house because she has a single level house where I can roll around. My own home, which I've not bee in since my December hospitalization, is a split level and doesn't lend itself to mobility in my present state.

Hopefully, the healing of the leg will continue to be satisfactory and around August or September be suitable to cut it open one more time to put some sort of artificial joint in again. It might be a hinged joint or even a rigid connection because of the extensive damage the infected wound caused, but it should be something that can bear weight and that I could walk on. It's been quite a journey so far.

Big Al

Oh my goodness Al, I had no idea! I am so sorry to hear about all of this, it sounds like a real nightmare.

But it also sounds like things are maybe getting better now? And of course even though you're not at your own home, being out of the hospital is good too I would imagine.

Please keep us posted on how you're doing, when you're up to it of course!!

Sending you lots of healing thoughts and prayers that the reminder of the procedures go well!!