All shall be well

From the outside, hospital life appears rather uneventful, now that all the major catastrophes have simmered down, yet there are big changes, every day. Each day I wake with a new attitude, a new outlook on our life--bad, good and everything in between. Each visitor, each phone conversation is monumental to me, and I like this--that time doesn't allow me to take anything for granted right now.

This morning the White Coat Brigade came in as usual around the 5am hour. One of them said if I could handle my 10am wound vac change without IV meds, I could go home as early as tonight or tomorrow. This got us all wound up, as I believe yesterday was the first day Roger began to lose patience with being here.

He had gone to get Ada for a while to have a little spot on her leg checked out (don't worry--everything is a-ok),and when he returned he said it really irked him that we weren't taking care of her ourselves. It's definitely a hard thing, and one I, too try to keep out of my mind because I know she is being cared for by the most amazing people, and it's necessary because I need very much to get well.

Then wound vac change time came. This time three nurses did it, which is the norm here. Nurse Fran is awesome, and she's been doing the wound vac for over 20 years. She and the other nurses did so many things to anticipate my pain and any discomfort, to make it as positive experience as possible. I laid on my side, holding Roger's hand, looking in his eyes and breathing, breathing. All the while held my baby girl's little face in my mind, praying that I could make it through without the IV meds.

But the pain came in waves too sharp for my breath, too sharp for my sweet girl's sweet little face. Then the flood of tears. And disappointment. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I said to Roger, to the nurses. They all reassured me over and over, and that made my next goal just to get through the procedure. The good news? Nurse Fran was blown away by the amount of healing that has taken place. She said it is going way faster than she ever thought it would.


They even took measurements to keep track. Here they are for those of you medical enthusiasts who like that king of stuff:
44x13 cm
27 cm crosshatch
Full depth (yech!) 9 cm at deepest point

Plastics even came to take a look again, and again, they said I may not need a graft to close it up, or it may be minimal.

More to the point--I'm not coming home tonight. Or tomorrow. Or anytime relatively soon. Nurse Fran gave me the patience speech again. And I know she's right. She says I'm healing so fast that I may only need to give it a week or two and it's possible I could go home with the wound CLOSED UP, meaning with no more wound vac. Meaning no thrice-weekly trips down here to deal with the wound vac. My intuition tells me that I could go home in the next one to two weeks. But, I've certainly been wrong before.

So here we are with really no more answers than we had this morning. One thing is for sure--I am taking all promises of going home with a big old grain of sea salt from here on out. We are also trying to contemplate our "plan" for this next chunk of time. Without going into big time logistics, we are trying to decide if maybe Roger will go home to our house on Orcas with all three kids to get them back in the swing of a semi-normal life. Friends and family members would come be with me for wound vac changes on MWF. Roger worries about leaving me, but my only job now is to heal, heal, heal! Plus, the amazing family members caring for our babes could probably use a big break. This is a big decision that we will try to make over the next few days. Please pray that we come up with the best outcome for all involved, but particularly our children. We are so lucky to have these choices in our situation.

I have mentioned before that much as I hate to admit it, there have been great things to come out of this time of awfulness. One of the biggest things that comes to mind is that I have met the most amazing people, most of whom have cared for me in some way or another. Yes, I have had one Nurse Ratchet (always has to be one!), but the rest are phenomenal, loving, and SELFLESS. How many people do you meet these days who are selfless? My answer is not many. I thank God for every one of them.

I go to sleep now with one of my favorite quotes--a simple little comfort to me:

All shall be well
And all shall be well
And all manner of thing shall be well
~Julian of Norwich