Little baby steps. Lea continues to make progress, ever so slowly, but progress, non the less. In fact, we had a family telephone conference call today, with Dr. Mah, and one of Lea’s nurses, Adam Dawidczyk, RN, and for the first time, heard Dr. Mah state that he thinks that we are almost ready to turn the corner toward recovery.
He cautioned, though, that several things still need to go right for that to happen. The incision in her abdomen, by the way, he considers a secondary issue, with recovery from the respiratory failure being the big problem we are combating at this time. It is unknown how much residual damage has been done to the lungs, and we are working to see if normal breathing can be restored.
He stated that she doesn’t have pancreatitis any more, and that is getting better. She is making some very positive steps forward, in that she is being weaned off the narcotics, kidneys are working well, her heart is doing pretty well, and her liver seems to be functioning at near normal levels.
The next steps are to reduce her sedation to the point that she will respond to commands. She occasionally will respond to commands right now, but usually doesn’t. But, then, she has been working really hard the last few days. She had the dressing change in the operating room yesterday, and a dressing change in her room today; Dr Mah changed her tracheostomy tube late today, to provide an airway device that wouldn’t cause damage to the walls of the trachea, and she also was able to breathe on her own with much less ventilator support.
The course of treatment from this point is to wean her from the narcotics over the next couple of weeks, using non-narcotic medications to control her pain, and to wean her from the ventilator over the same time period. He also stated that he thought we might be able to begin closing the wound in a couple of weeks, but that a skin graft is highly likely. He would first put in the mesh material at the muscle level, and then a couple of weeks after that, put in the skin graft.
So, we look for great improvements over the next four weeks. We also anticipate some problems will pop up: perhaps a small pneumonia (nothing like we experienced last time), and probably some infection in the incision, as well as a number of other types of small problems that can crop up in medical treatment this extensive.
If everything goes well, Lea may be able to be moved from Intensive Care to a Step Down unit in about two weeks. If any problems crop up it could extend that move another two weeks or so. At that point, we would begin physical rehabilitation for her to learn to walk, we would begin retraining her voice box so she can start talking again, and begin the final healing process. At some point after that, we would possibly be able to move her to a physical rehabilitation facility near home.
Dr. Mah agreed that it is a good idea to have someone with a recovering patient 24×7 when they get well enough to move to Step Down, so we will be keeping a close watch on her progress and try to arrange some support at the appropriate times. She is likely to be quite confused when she finally weaned from the narcotics, and will be about three months behind the times when she is able to get past the confusion and start catching up with lost time.
We are so very encouraged, and yet, know that we will have some down days ahead of us. Stlll, the Lord has been so good to us, and granted us so many blessings in the past few weeks, we can’t help but rejoice at the wonderfully bright outlook the doctors and nurses have, and the good news about God’s love that we have to share with others. He has performed miracle after miracle in Lea, and she will be a case study published by Dr. Mah. More importantly, she will be a case study in your ministry of God’s love!
Happy evangelizing,
Larry
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March 28, 2007 at 11:57 am
Pray-ers
DAY FIFTY-FOUR
FROM: Wallace
Sept 7 @ 9:27 AM
From Ro and I,…. the story of the Teacup and the Potter.
FROM: Judy
Sept 7 @ 9:28 AM
Larry: This is Judy and I do hope that all goes well. Your wife must have a heart that is unbelievably strong. She has been through so much and the good Lord must be helping out and all the prayers you have received must have helped. She has not been forgotten. I do enjoy getting the updates from Karen and she has sure been concerned. May God Bless You both and we will be thinking of you and Lea and keep you in our prayers.
FROM: Kim
Sept 7 @ 5:33 PM
Hi again. While I’m sorry the doctors weren’t able to finally close the incision yet, I’m sure their reasons are sound. I remember when Donna had her 2nd (?) surgery for ovarian cancer. The drs didn’t sew her up quite as well as the first time, due to excessive swelling. Unfortunately, I think the insurance company was wanting her out of there and basically they gave her a quick course in wound care and sent her home to take care of repacking the area herself every day for the next week or so. The area is still somewhat misshapen and I know she was very upset about it. I know the cosmetic aspect of all this is the least of her worries,
just wanted to share that example with you.
Please tell Lea that we all survived Labor Day weekend. Mary is a little concerned about her son, Alex who’s down at Univ of Southern IN. Maybe too much fun and too little study….. We’re all telling her that might change once he finds out his mid terms. 🙂 She also says she misses him more than she thought she would and we all smile and nod. Alex was pretty much the center of her world, but she didn’t think she’d miss him? Ask “Mrs. Walton” (Mary’s nickname for Lea) if she agrees.
This morning was a bit busy and I didn’t get around to forwarding your update right away. Boy, did I hear about that! It seems that every update is like the next chapter in a book we’re all reading. Lea is the heroine and you’re the narrator….. see, I told you that you should consider making a book out of this. 🙂 Guess that’s all I have to babble about for the time being. My mother in law is spending the night tonight and then I take her to the airport tomorrow at 6am. She’s visiting friends in Kansas. Anyway, need to get home and do a little straightening and figure out what to make for supper. Our thoughts and prayers are always with you. You’re doing a wonderful job and thank you again for generously keeping us all “in the loop”. God Bless!
FROM: Carol
Sept 7 @ 9:58 PM
Praise God that you have both come so far, and that you realize that you still have a long way to go. But with the prayer group you two have behind you anything is possible. My son Scott is safely back in the U.S.A. (from the Persian Gulf). We are giving thanks that he has returned safely. He is without a computer for the time being so he calls me daily to get his “lea update”. We both have an extended email list (he added most of his to mine this past weekend.) I am not sure that we will ever know for sure just how many people we have on the extended prayer lists. Our older son is getting married the 17th and that will be a special occaision for us also.