October 26, 2011

Hello Everyone!,

Last night Don had a lot of restlessness and pain in his leg.  He did not sleep well at all.  It was due to the decrease in his pain medication.  When the pain management team came in today they increased his Dilaudid back to 1.5 mg. per hour.  Hopefully this is an adequate amount to get him through the night.  They also prescribed a sleeping medication called Pamelor which we need to research before they give it to him.  When he took the other sleeping medication called Ambien it was terrible and he almost got up out of the bed which scared my Mother because she was staying the night.  Hopefully this will not happen to him tonight.  My Mom had to get up several times last night during the night to massage his right leg which seems to be giving him terrible pain.

Early this afternoon the plastic surgeon came in and looked at the wound and he gave us a big thumbs up saying that it was healing nicely and that we were doing everything right and to keep up the good work!  He said that Don is no way "out of the woods" but that this is a big celebration point toward getting on to rehab!  He said that for sure Don had to stay totally inactive and in bed for at least another day before he would give the ok for any physical therapy or getting into a wheel chair.  Believe me, we are following his word to a tee as Don is totally unwilling to go into another surgery to fix anything!!  Dr. Sohn said that he for sure wants Don on the air bed for a minimum of two weeks so the healing can continue.  We learned that the rehab unit here does not accept patients with any bed other than the ones they have so that means that we will for sure be here in Room C416 until November 5th.  After that date then he can evaluate Don's wound and move us on to rehab.  Dr. Sohn also mentioned that he would be highly recommending that we get moved to rehab here at Sunrise Medical Center so that he can keep a close eye on Don and have his followups with the wound very frequent and see us until we are in the clear and out of any dangers of a reopening of the wound.  When the surgeon left we all three cried tears of joy knowing that God had indeed answered our prayers and cries for healing!!!!!!!!

Mom took another picture of the wound for our records and it looks excellent.  Don asked what it looked like and Mom showed him the picture on her phone and he only glanced at it in horror and quickly looked away and said that it made him sick.  Well, we think it looks amazing and wonderful because we have seen it all along which was indeed scary even to the most skilled medical person.  So, now he knows why it has taken this long to heal and why it took so many surgeries to fix it.  I don't know if he will ever be able to see the pictures of the early stages of this wound or not because how severe it was.  All we know now is that we want it to stay together and get healed to the point where he can move forward in a big way.

Overall, Don felt quite good today and was alert most of the day.  It is getting cooler here by far and in fact today it was only 68 degrees for the high and tonight it is going to get down to 42 degrees!!  Mom is from Florida and so she was freezing so we had to go get her a new all weather coat today so she can make it through this cold snap.  We are moving in faith right now and tonight we booked her another flight back to Florida scheduled to leave Monday morning, October 31st.  Please pray that we are able to move forward enough to feel comfortable sending her home again.  Don is going to have to become more independent before he can move on to rehab according to Dr. Sohn so hopefully he can make it through the nights with the assistance of the nurses while I get some sleep at nights at the hotel.  It is just too hard for me to be here alone for 24 hours a day as we found out earlier.  The nurses really love the fact that they don't have to do much for Don and they say to us that we are so easy and they feel guilty about not having to do much in this room.  Hopefully, Don will be able to handle at least 8 hours alone.  Right now he is restricted to NO TWISTING OR BENDING and so he needs assistance doing his turns from right to left sides every 2 hours.  Also, moving his water, cell phone, glasses, etc. from one side of the bed to the other is something he cannot do himself as well as moving his catheter bag and all his pillows that prop him up all over is major with helping him move all the time.

We still need lots of prayers and we so appreciate all the cards, gifts and loving support.  We look forward to the day when we say we are heading back to Mesa, Arizona to finish his rehabilitation work!

Love you all,
Don and Carol and Mom (Sharon Zelinko)