Recovery Started

Thank the Lord, this was a much better day for Lea! After receiving two units of blood over night, she was over the chills she experienced most of the day yesterday, and seemed to have much more color. She felt better, too, and was up eating an early breakfast when I returned to room this morning. In fact, she felt good enough to go into the bathroom to clean up, wash her hair and don a light blue nightgown!

Although she slept a lot throughout the day, this was more recreational sleeping than the drug induced sleep she has experienced over the last several days. Her pain level is down enough that we were able to wean her off those high levels of pain medications, although she protested loud and long. Over time she is going to be receiving reduced levels of the narcotic medication and increased levels of non-narcotic meds to get her off the controlled substance altogether.

This is the fourth post-operation day, and it appears that we may be here for another day or two to give physical therapy a chance to help her make some substantive progress on stretching that Achilles tendon so she can get her heel down and stand flat footed. If we don’t achieve the needed level of flexibility she needs, I’m not certain she would have confidence that it could be done at all.

Her attitude, however, is one hundred eighty degrees from what we have experienced the previous couple of days. The swelling is going down some, the redness is covering a smaller area, and her leg is certainly much straighter than it has been for years. We are very optimistic that she can recover full use of that leg and get off the walker and then the cane in due time.

I took her for a short walk down the hall this evening, right after dinner, and she worked quite hard at getting the foot down flat, and take long enough steps to get the heel to strike the floor before the ball of the foot does. She has two issues she is dealing with; the drop foot, and the habit of walking on the ball of her foot to protect her knee. She no longer needs to protect it, but habits are hard to change.

Speaking of dinner; along with getting that blood transfusion came a return of her appetite. For her dinner she ordered an entrée, four side dishes and a dessert. And, she ate it! Her pain control is much better today as well. Her Dilaudid dose has been reduced to 2mg every six hours, with Vicodin in between as needed.

She got a little uncomfortable at times today, but was tolerating the pain much better. Her overall situation appears to be greatly improved, and we are hopeful that we will be able to see steady progress from this point forward. As always, we praise God for the healing He provides, and look forward to getting her recovery underway.

Since she was doing so well, and able to fend for herself when she needs assistance, I left a little early tonight while there was still enough light left to water our flowers and try to save them from the continuing dearth of rain in our area. With the dog days of summer just around the corner it doesn’t look well for flower gardens this year. But, maybe that’s all part of His plan to give her an incentive to get out of the house and tend her flower gardens.  🙂

Lea after her bath, smiling at dinner, the operated site.