Just got off the phone with Stephanie's nurse. She was a huge source of information. She confirmed that Steph WILL be having another surgery on her leg tomorrow afternoon at 3:30. This is the "routine" cleaning out the wound surgery. Her injury takes a lot of time to heal and has to be periodically cleaned out of dead tissue. Pray for her as she goes under for this process that she would come out as well as she has during her other surgeries. Pray also for wisdom for the surgeon as they determine the best way to clean her wound.
Stephanie is also undergoing the process of (hopefully) removing her feeding tube. They have been injecting blue dye down her esophagus since last week. Each day they look for any traces of blue dye in her lung secretions. So far there hasn't been any! This is GREAT!!! That combined with Speech Therapy working with her swallowing mechanism/muscle....they will hopefully soon be able to start giving her nutrients through her mouth and remove her feeding tube. Simultaneously they are weaning her off the need for a trache. This is a SLOW process, but it is good that she is strong and stable enough to be tolerating it.
Speech and Occupational Therapies as well as her nurses have been working with her regularly to have her "obey" commands. As her brain heals, they are able to better determine exactly what injuries she sustained. As many of you know her brain injury encompassed her entire right hemisphere of her brain...so the exact injuries aren't totally known. She does seem to recognize family and friends when they visit as well as acknowledge "knowing" who someone is, when you ask her. It is uncertain if she has any sort of specific memory loss. God created a very complex organ when created the brain and it takes time to know what exactly has been disturbed. Please pray for her caretakers as they help her through the healing process of her brain injury and our family as we walk along with her. It is undeniable that the essence of Stephanie is back! Her physical mannerisms and movements of the face convey a lot. We are hopeful that when she is healed she will not have lasting effects of the accident.
Prayer Requests:
Surgery on her leg tomorrow at 3:30
Continued progression through the "blue dye tests"
Continued strengthening of her swallowing muscles
Continual progress with weaning off of the trache.
Her brain injury that her memory and all aspects of Stephanie would come back, and we would all have patients in the meantime.
spoke to an RN I know. She says its a slow process. But what I have told her it sounds as though Stephanie is doing well Praise the Lord S Hayden
ReplyDeleteThanks for the updates. :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for inspiring us with your commitment to fellow human beings in time of duress, when relations would tend to frey and be torn apart. That should help the similarly disaffected to understand your situation in full, and get some insights or two about it. Thanks for sharing your story! I'm praying for a successful surgery and a speedy recovery.
ReplyDeleteSabrina Craig @ Medical Attorney NY