Coming Home Pics

Haley, Hannah and Riley escort Sandy from the car upon her return home from Hopkins. Notice that Sandy has to hold up her pants! As you can imagine, this was a slow and gingerly walk to the house.

And, yes, that's right, Hannah (age 11) is only 3/4" shorter than her mom. Haley will probably pass them both up at some point.

Finally! The pics work again!

The picture feature finally seems to be working again, so I'll post a few here for your viewing pleasure.

This sign was a fantastic surprise. Jane, our neighbor across the street hung this on her garage shortly after Sandy's surgery. I suspect that her sister and her brother in law were also involved, Ellen and Jim. I took a picture and brought it down to the hospital so Sandy could see it and it brought a great smile to her face. Thanks!

This sign was made by our creative neighbor, also named Sandy. The girls helped her stake it in front of the entrance, and added as many decorations as they could. Hannah was especially thrilled with the choice for color for the letters- pink!

Steady as She Goes.

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delinquency in updating the blog. Aside from the "Ode To Anna Nicole," which I happen to really like, I have not posted an update in about two weeks. I'll drop a few notes here and plan to update again later in the week or over the weekend.

The healing is happening, but it is just very slow and not very gratifying for Sandy. This is a long, slow recovery that will take many months. It reminds me of a slog through the mud. If you ever tried to walk a hundred yards through mud at knee to thigh depth, imagine this as trying to run a marathon through that same mud.

Sandy does not see the little things that are improving, but they are apparent to the rest of us. She can climb into a car now, get out, and shut the door. Two weeks ago, she could not have turned to shut a car door. Just the way she can get up from a chair or sofa and move across the room is far better than it was when she first came home. This is probably an indication of good, internal healing.

One of her drains was removed last Friday, along with the PICC line. The PICC is no longer needed, since she can eat normally now. This leaves one drain in her abdomen, which will come out this Friday. Sandy will finally be completely without tether. I can't imagine what a reminder those drains must be...something that always reminds her that she is a patient. I imagine that getting rid of that drain will be liberating, at least to some degree.

After all the anesthesia and physical trauma, it is very difficult to focus for long periods to watch a movie or read a book. She is incredibly bored trying to entertain herself each day, and light converstion is probably the best. She still has no energy, almost constant nausea, and can't take a lot of visitors. However, she really does appreciate the visitors and you should feel free to call her and stop by.

BTW-I find that neither of us thinks to check messages very often, so we have some calls stacked up that are unreturned. If yours is one of them--sorry about that!

More later.