1/22/11 - 2 Weeks Down - Post Surgery

Hi Everyone – We’ve had quite the eventful week to report on with some positives and some bumps in the road along the way.  But all in all, we’re still moving forward thanks to God’s strength!  Let me recap last week for those of you who haven’t gotten any updates, but have continued to faithfully pray for us!

Some major mile markers that took place last week:

The Epidural was taken out Wednesday morning as it can only stay in for 9 to 10 days total.  While Jas didn’t think the epidural was doing much for him, he quickly found out otherwise the poor guy!  We told you we’d celebrate together as each tube/cord came out of Jas.  Count one down with the epidural coming out – hooray!

Our first bump in the road in week 2 was that his feeding tube was plugged for an entire night last week - which was his only source of nutrition/calories at the time.  So unfortunately the nurses came in every hour for an entire night to keep trying to flush the plug out in order to keep getting nutrition into his body.  Praise God they were able to get it unplugged, however we were exhausted the next day after another sleepless night.

Back to another positive - Jas passed his leak/swallow test on Wednesday.  Hooray!  When we heard this news, things really began to progress forward.   That evening Dr. Burrows did the honors of pulling the tube out of his nose that ran all the way down his new esophagus into his stomach.  Instantly he could breathe better, his throat didn’t feel as sore and the flem that had been hanging around went away – YEAH!!!  He was like a new man after this!  Yet another tube gone – THANK YOU GOD!   Here are before and after pics.

Freedom from another tube!

And to follow closely behind, his catheter then came out.  Another tube gone!   We were on a roll!  AWESOME GOD! 

Chest Tubes

By Thursday night, they still hadn’t been able to get the new meds right to help with the pain that the epidural had been covering so Jas had another really awful, sleepless night with lots of pain in his stomach and side (where the chest tubes were - pic to the right).  The poor guy couldn’t even catch his breath through the pain!  I have never in my 14 years of knowing him seen him to this point of pain ever!  It was so hard to watch and I felt so darn helpless.  Needless to say, the one thing I could do through it all was to keep pressing the nurses to take action - which unfortunately took ALL night : (  However, Praise God they eventually got things working again for him the following morning.  From what we are learning, typically the majority of people who have this surgery are 55+ yrs old.  Because Jas is younger and his nerve endings are more tethered than a 55 yr old,  the pain he feels is much more intense therefore he requires much more medication than their "typical patient".  Wheew!  Yet another night of not much sleep and an experience probably similar to the pain a woman is in during intense labor for a whole night with no relief.  I do think he’ll have much more understanding and sympathy to the entire pregnancy/labor process in the future : ) 

His first drink in 5 days!

By Friday, they took out 1of his chest tubes and TADAAAAAAAAAAA that helped with part of the pain reduction tremendously!  Yet another tube down – THANK YOU GOD!  Also, he was able to start taking liquids by mouth so each day they have progressed a little further in terms of what they are letting him eat.  To the left is a picture of his first drink - grape juice.  We’ve gone from water to juice to chicken broth to tomato soup to cream of wheat, etc.  And of course, it’s also been frustrating all the things they try to serve you in a hospital that are loaded with sugar that Jas has politely declined: juices with added sugar, pudding, ice cream, shakes with sugar and high fructose corn syrup, grrrrr….  An answered prayer to this was that our friend Dr. Kim (Grace) came to visit on Saturday and took me grocery shopping 5 minutes away to a Whole Foods store so I could pick up some almond milk, organic applesauce and a lot of Naked Brand fruit and veggie drinks for Jas so he could have some quality options.  THANK YOU Grace – you were a lifesaver!  I certainly don’t know my way around Baltimore outside of the hospital, so it was such an incredible thing for her to do for us on her day off : )  What an awesome friend with such a heart for the Lord!  Another very positive thing about Saturday is that they took his 2^nd chest tube out.  Yet another Hallelujah – Praise God day : ) 

By the way, let me bring you up to speed on how he's walking!  I can't even video him now because he is walking so incredibly fast.  We did some figuring and think that he's up to 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile each day now.  And, he has a reputation on this floor among all the nurses.  They don't even ask him if he wants to walk, they ask him if he's ready for a run.  That just makes Jas smile to know that he's the ones pushing the nurses to walk faster through is physical therapy.  Yet another WIN - Thanks God! 

Then Saturday night, going into Sunday was a rough one again.  We had the nurses flying into the room every hour bc Jason’s heart rate was very high and he had a fever.  So of course they had to closely monitor him through the entire night every hour.  All day Sunday (1/22) they tried to diagnose what the root cause of the problem was that was causing his fever with no answers.  His fever came down, but his white cell counts doubled and heart rate remained fairly high.  By Sunday evening Jas had a CAT scan with contrast done to see if they could find anything out as to the problem.   Bless Dr. Burrow’s heart, he stopped by to see Jas 3 times this day to "put his eyeballs on him".  The last time he swung by was to tell us that there may be a possible leak that the CAT scan detected, however he wasn’t so sure that was the case as it hadn’t showed up on the swallow/leak test earlier in the week.  However, know that the swallow/leak test tends to be a much more sensitive test to pick up on leaks and this was done on Wednesday showing no leaks, so he isn’t so sure that there actually is one.  Also, he shared that there’s a small amount of fluid and air in the right lung which had been collapsed during surgery.  Nothing to be extremely worried about, but enough to put in a catheter/chest tube back into his chest to drain the fluid and air.  Uggghhh!  Those darn things just immediately scream pain, so please pray that this one miraculously doesn’t cause any pain for Jas.

So we ended Sunday evening with some tough/sad news that because of the bump in the road that Jas experienced today, it’s looking like it may be another week in the hospital, totallying closer to 3 wks instead of heading home tomorrow : (  Jas is still in decent spirits through it all and looking on the bright side, at least this is all happening while he’s still in the hospital vs. after he came home right?  On the other hand, what breaks our hearts is that we’re now going to not see Taylor for yet another week - totaling now 3.5 weeks of her being gone : (  But, we know it's best for her as she doesn’t have to experience any of the stress of this situation and can just be carefree like you would hope an almost 3 yr old should be.   We are so incredibly grateful to our family in Ohio for taking such amazing care of her for practically a month! THANK YOU GUYS!  We love you! It’s just so hard being apart from her this long!  Thank God for technology so we can at least Skype/Facetime with her often to see her sweet little face.  She let us watch her make an angel craft tonight while we talked which was fun to see her in action and happy!  The other funny thing is that every time we talk with Taylor, she thinks it's hilarious that daddy has his jammies on all the time and that they always have moons and stars on them.  Those beautiful hospital gowns our daughter loves - smile!

We can’t thank you enough for all of the love and encouragement you have sent us these past couple weeks specifically.  And for those who have come to visit, sacrificing your time to spend with us to help time pass by more quickly – THANK YOU!  And for all the special things you have brought for us and treated us to, we are so grateful.  Again, God continues to pour his love out on us through our family and friends here on earth!  Here’s a couple pics that will make you smile that displays some creative gifts we got this week.  And…we’ve gotten more bottles of chapstick than you can imagine with a rainbow of flavors that just makes me laugh as we see them all lined up in the hospital room : )  Even the nurses are commenting on our collection of chapstick since our last blog post lol.  Love being able to laugh through this all, which can only be coming from God!  Please, keep the humor coming - laughter is good for the soul!

If you can read this you are DANGEROUSLY too close sign!

Well, that's it for now!  Please keep Jason in your prayers for complete healing, strength and patience while we continue to reside in our luxury suite at the hospital with our Baltimore skyline view for another week.  And that Taylor continues to behave and enjoy having extra special time with our family in Ohio, not feeling any stress of what we are enduring right now!

Thank you so very much for your continued commitment to pray and love on our family through this trial!
With Much Love in His Healing Name!

Meg