Post Surgery Update - Day 1

Good morning all. I awoke today, still pretty tired from yesterday, but really excited to see Sue. I got to the hospital around 7:30AM and Sue was already up and very aware of what is going on around her. They actually ended up letting her wake up last night. I am told that she was up a good portion overnight, taking a few cat naps.

All I could think about on the way down was being able to tell Sue how well everything went yesterday. Unfortunately, when I entered her room, she was pretty agitated and in a lot of pain. Her right leg was is a tremendous amount of pain from the knee down. This is where they took the bone graft and tissue from. They have it in a boot, as they don't want her moving it around, and this is very uncomfortable for her.

However, the toughest part to watch was that she was having trouble breathing through her trach. She was having trouble getting the secretions out and felt as though she was suffocating. This went on for probably the first hour that I was here. She also has a feeding tube going into her nostril and down the back of her throat. It makes her feel like she needs to cough something out of her throat, but she obviously cannot.

The good news is that they were able to get the pain and discomfort under control finally. It was a helpless feeling when Sue was writing on her board that she was suffocating or that she was in great pain, but knowing that the nurse and respiratory tech were doing everything that they were able to do for her. She was getting frustrated with all of us.

She is now resting comfortably and actual is taking a nap right now. They plan to start giving her some nutrition via her feeding tube this afternoon. This should help with some of the upset stomach she has from her pain meds. Her stats are also doing well. The only other thing that they are watching is that her blood count is fairly low, but this is no surprise.

I did get to see the nurse check something during Sue's cares that was very interesting. He actually checked for her heartbeat through the cheek that they rebuilt. Pretty simple in reality, but it is used to indicate the the blood is flowing to the area where they reconnected the tissue and bone with the harvested blood vessels.

Sue looks really good. She does have quite a bit of swelling, but it actually isn't as much as I expected to see. She can see out of her eye. I did tell her that everything went as well as we could have hoped for yesterday, but I think she already sensed that. I don't think she knows everything that they did and found, but that can wait. It was just fantastic to see her.

She is very appreciative of all of the prayers and love that we received yesterday. We are blessed to have such fantastic family, friends, and neighbors.

Jason