Last Night's Surgery

Amanda came out of surgery at about 10:00 last night. The doctors met with my sister and brother-in-law to explain the status.

Her fever is down to 98.2 (at least, it was after surgery). Her heartrate was down to 116. Although the doctors preferred to see a heartrate under 100, they were willing to settle for 120. 116 is VERY acceptable.

They found NO infection inside her. They now believe her temp was elevated just because of the trauma to her body. She was still oozing inside, so they removed her packing and repacked her innards. They reconnected her intestines and said things are beginning to heal up and look better. They thoroughly cleaned her intestines and abdominal cavity. They've left her open again and plan to take her back into surgery on Thursday (tentatively) to remove this packing and check on her progress. They hope to take an Orthopedic Surgeon with them into surgery, not to work on her pelvis at this time, but to get some idea how he is going to proceed in the future so they can begin to formulate a plan for repairing her pelvis. Her swelling is even beginning to go down. Her hands are noticeably less swollen. This was all very good news.

The challenges - one of the doctors talked with my sister and mother yesterday, trying to prepare them a little for what lies ahead. He explained that in severe trauma cases, like this one, you make a little headway, then encounter problems. We will never reach a point where it's a straight line of improvement. She'll go forward a little, then get knocked back a little as another challenge presents itself. We need to be prepared so the new problems don't throw us for a loop. At this point, we don't even know when they'll take her off the ventilator and begin to bring her out of the coma. Certainly not before Thursday.

The other question I have is about sewing her up. After her initial surgery on Saturday, her tissues were too swollen to sew her interior back up. Plus, there was no reason to reconnect her muscles and tendons only to have to cut through them again for the next surgery. They put clamps on her skin to pull it across her body, but everything inside was still open. Obviously, they won't be able to close her up while the packing is in her. The question seems to be if they can close her up with so many pelvic surgeries pending and, if they leave her open, how long is that safe and does she have to stay in ICU the whole time? Her father seems to think they'll start slowly closing up parts, starting at the top (chest) and closing down a little more with each subsequent surgery. He thinks they may leave the pelvic region open, but that seems a little improbable to me.

In any case, this will be a VERY long process, with many surgeries, joys, and discouragements along this road. My sister just wants her to open her eyes, look at her, and say, "I love you, Mama." But we don't even know when she'll be able to talk - could be a very long time.

Pray for our relationships - we're all stressed and I spoke inappropriately to one of my sisters yesterday, upsetting everyone. When you throw 4 strong-willed people together (my mother, myself, and my two sisters that live here) in a 3' X 3' square under unimaginable stress for 3 solid days, things are bound to happen. But I want to behave and we all NEED to behave, for the sake of my sister, the mother of the child walking through this terrible ordeal. So pray that ALL of us can be charitable and choose to not take offense. This is about Amanda, not us.

And pray for my sweet baby whose body is so damaged. She needs a huge portion of grace and strength to deal with what's ahead for her. Her mother and father need even a greater portion of grace.

My sister got to take a shower in an empty patient room at the hospital last night and fell in the shower. She hasn't slept since Friday night when she was awoken at 4 a.m. by the call about the accident. She's exhausted and dealing with her own health issues. She's GOT to get some rest. She does seem to be eating a little - many friends have brought food and snacks up to the hospital and that has been very helpful.

So, we hold on and continue to pray - knowing God will bring healing but, also, that he expects us to ask and ask often.

Join us in the asking.