Strength One Day At A TIME, Stace...

8/8 Update

Posted 1 hour ago

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. ---Leo Buscaglia

The tides of Stacey's story continue to turn... As Dr Canabal told my parents this morning, this is no longer a 'health' issue, but more of a 'strength' issue. Her chemistry and vitals are good and they are watching the abscess behind her liver shrink (from a large size to 2 1/2 CM as of the last CT scan). The procedure they were going to do today to help any 'leakage' is on hold because they think that this issue is healing with the help of antibiotics and her own body knowing what to do. The important thing now is for Stacey to build up her strength and maintain her own breathing.

To do this, the doctors are "scheduling" regular times for her on the "trach collar" (like 2 hours on, X hours off). After just looking online, it appears that the trach collar is a device that holds her respiratory / tracheal opening in place while she is breathing on her own. We hope with Stacey's commitment to getting healthy, she'll stick to the schedule and have the strength to maintain her breathing... I know it will get easier for her as she persists.

Lastly, my dad is flying home tomorrow to be around here for a couple of weeks and Ralph is flying back next week to be with my mom. Since Stacey has maintained her status and is in the 'building strength' phase, it's a good time to come home and take care of some stuff like kissing grandchildren, cooking at home and petting a poodle... It will be great having him back for a little while...

If there are any updates later, I'll post again. If not, we'll give an update tomorrow after the doctor's come by!

Happy Saturday and what a long, strange 3 weeks this has been!
Marcey

PS - as an interesting side note, my dad was talking to one of the Doctor's about liver transplants versus others organ transplants. He learned that liver transplants are more complicated than heart transplants but less complicated than lungs. We guess not only the surgery, but also complications during recovery. If you can imagine the size of a liver and all of the systems that are dependent on it, the complexity makes sense. The technology is amazing and these doctors are masters of their craft. We definitely honor those doing this work and the people that donate their organs so that others can live...