Incremental Progress

Hopefully Lee will still feel good about giving me permission to post these photos once she’s on less medication, but I thought they helped provide some context to what has to be accomplished before she gets to come home.

The positive news is that her pain and nausea levels continued to be well managed yesterday after the placement of the local anesthetic probes.  She was also moved to a different floor (now in Room 722) where the nursing staff are much more familiar with all the meds and other supports that Lee currently requires.  That change has proved to be very positive and the care coordination among the new staff has provided significantly longer blocks of much needed rest.

In talking with her last night, we both agreed that the best markers of progress will be the systematic dismantling of “Thor” and all of the external items that are impacting internal processes.  To that end, we are excited to report that she was able to shed two “hoses” yesterday as she came off her supplemental oxygen and CO2 monitoring (the annoying top lip tickler in the picture).  Those changes also had a very positive impact on her ability to sleep.

Out of an abundance of caution, her surgeon decided to wait one more day before beginning to test her feeding tube, so we anticipate that trial getting underway later today.  We are very thankful for the positive improvements over the past 36 hours and deeply appreciate your continued prayers for progress and healing.  

Steve