Hello All!
Al will be going back home tomorrow afternoon if his “peg” works (see below!). Two weeks is long enough to live in a hospital!Most injuries have stabilized or are healing well. Here is what is left:
– “C collar”- the stiff neck brace he has to wear for another 4-5 weeks to protect his fractured cervical vertebrae.
– “peg” – instead of an NG tube through his nose, he had a procedure to place a direct line into his stomach for liquid food. This will remain until Al can swallow. The disappointing news was that yesterday, Al flunked his swallowing test so he has to go through therapy to get his nerves/muscles to cooperate. This length of this process is an unknown but could take a few weeks to longer.
– trach removed today! His neck and trach have some healing to do. This is expected to take approximately one week. Meanwhile, gauze covers the surgical opening. Al’s voice is almost normal!
– jaw and dental surgery are sometime in the future… soonish but no dates yet.
– forearm and hand weakness, numbing and tingling are improving daily. This is a good thing because the more rapidly they heal, the less chance for permanent injury. He will be doing some PT/OT for these… likely getting some suture materials to practice with because he wants to be able to do surgery again.
-left wrist still needs some support from the removable splint.
The most amazing thing to note is that he almost looks fairly normal… like, you wouldn’t know by just looking at him now how seriously injured he was. Its a good thing!
It will take months for him to fully recover but I expect he will. Meanwhile, he tires easily (he did lose a lot of blood that he has to rebuild). I think getting out of the hospital and back into the restful comfort of home will automatically confer healing advantages. Nearly impossible to sleep in the hospital… it’s just not part of the deal!
Visitors to us in Gig Harbor are welcome if you have the time. He (and I) really enjoy the company, but call first. Also, he can’t tolerate long visits. He gets all animated and wants to be social but then gets wiped out. And, I imagine he will be busy with scheduled health care visits especially over the next few weeks.
Not quite out of the woods but we can see a clearing.
Thanks to everyone.
Cheryl (and Al)