Happy third day of Hanukkah.
All of Jamie's immediate family (and Sarah and Claire) are here tonight in Houston, the day before her Lumbar Sympathectamy surgery. We've talked about the what the surgery does in an earlier post, but in brief, Dr. Lin will cut a small portion of a nerve so that she gets more blood flow to her feet. She will also experience a reduction in pain to her legs, but the blood flow issue is most important. The surgery will take place on Christmas Eve at 7:30am. Some technician/assistant will come and get her at about 7:10 or so. The surgery should take a few hours and she'll be bed ridden (meaning no PT or hyperbaric treatment) for at least one day, maybe two.
We haven't talked too much about her numbers but they're looking good. Her platelets are at 420; her white blood cells are at 18; hemoglobins are at 8.2. Jamie hasn't thrown up in three days now, which comes as a huge relief to her.
Jamie continues to do a lot in her physical therapy sessions. She's sitting in a chair for multiple hours every day. Of course, she goes until she's in pain, but she's able to do a lot more each day.
We had a bit of a scary moment with the plastic surgeon consult at the hospital. He told us, yesterday, that we should also amputate some parts of Jamie's hands while we were doing tomorrow's procedure. Kind of a "why don't we just cut her fingers off while we're there" justification... well, of course, that was not the correct answer. We're not going to undergo the hand procedures or any other amputations, since there is apparently no need. There's no signs of wet gangrene, so, as we understood it, there was no need for us to rush to amputate. So, since this was a big change, it came as a huge shock to us. We spoke to Dr. Lin about this and he said, basically, "look, I think we should be waiting as long possible, and unless we see wet gangrene, then we shouldn't be cutting anything."
We agree. So, tomorrow, we're having our first surgery. Wish us luck. Keep Jamie in your prayers. Hopefully, we'll have some good things to report in about 18 hours.
-Nick
SERVE for P.L.A.Y.
14 years ago
1 comment:
susan and i got to see jamie for the first time on sunday. what a relief. and at the same time we got to talk with dr. lin,,her main doc. he filled us in on the hyperbaric treatments and what they can do , but was honest with us about jamies prognosis. he is very confident that the treatments are hepful ,,but that janmie will lose some fingers and at the same time he is very confident about her future. she is young and strong and this aint the middle ages. prostectics are so miraculous today,,she will be able to acomplish anything. we are so proud of her and so full of hope for her future.
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