Good news is Melissa is getting stronger and moving around better. I won't say the bad news is but just the news is that they took the wound vac off probably to stay and are wet dressing the top of the surgical wound and dry packing the bottom section. The top part is looking nice and is healing well. Her belly button just looks funny now. The bottom portion is not having as easy of a time. It still has a tube coming out to drain stuff but is also leaking stuff from the wall of the cavity. Melissa discovered that yesterday so the doctor hasn't seen it. Because it is dry packed when it becomes saturated then she has a mess. That happens at least three times a day if not more. She is becoming very frustrated and discouraged. Last night we we were ready to leave when she discovered that things needed to be cleaned up. Luckily we were still there to get her supplies. Melissa doctors were gone yesterday but Drew and Melissa did talk to the on call doctor about going to see some one at Barnes. They called her surgeon to give him the heads up and stranglely enough her surgeon and the doctor that she would see are both at the same conference and can talk about her case. Hopfully that will happen soon.

Melissa had problems today with her bag leaking. When she changed it then she found that it had leaked under the tape for the wound vac. Then it was decided that the wound vac was not doing its job. What was needing to be sucked up was too thick and clogging things up. She now has a bag over that wound and needs to make sure and spend more time sitting up. The doctor thinks that if she sits up more then she won't have stool flowing out through her wound.

The doctors now say that because of these problems she will not get to go home until next week.

The doctors are starting to talk about Melissa coming home by the end of the week if she does well on oral antibiotics. they switched one IV to something that has a pill form to see if she can tolerate it for a couple of day and then will try the pill form. Slow but sure. Her wound vac was changed today. Still putting out a lot of junk. They have taken her off her continuous pain meds and lengthened the time in between when she can get a dose and have put her on pills. The pain pump was not working as well so she had built a tolerance of it.

She is getting stronger and had a good Easter weekend. Her in-laws to be brought Easter dinner in. Although she couldn't eat much she still enjoyed something besides hospital food.

Her CT scan didn't show anything new. We did find out that the partially inflated lung was due to having the central line put in. A chest x-ray Sunday showed that everything is alright there.

Family and friends came to pray with her Monday night. She didn't go downstairs because she couldn't stay awake after having meds to help with the wound vac change in the afternoon. Thank you for all your prayers. There is NO WAY we could have gotten through all this if it wasn't for God's help.

I spent Thursday night with Melissa because her wound vac leaked. They were not able to get it going and so just packed the incision for the night. It could have got real messy but didn't. Friday she had a CT scan to find out where all the drainage is coming from. After that they hooked her back up to the wound vac at her request. They were willing to let her just do the packing to cut back on tape. She thinks the vac will be less messy. Also one of the central line ports failed. She does have two others so she is still ok with that. They are able to draw blood so she doesn't have to be stuck, giving her a chance for her arms to heal.

I did talk to the nurse about the CT scan. They said it showed a lung not inflating all the way which I am not surprised since she has not been moving around a lot in a couple of days. It also showed a leak which we knew she had. We will get official results today.

Meanwhile we are taking her supper from a family get together. Something different from hospital food although it is good too. They just don't vary the menu. Of course they don't expect most people to know they are repeating so much.

Family and friends are getting together Monday night at 7 PM to pray for Melissa at the hospital. If you can't join us remember us in prayer at the same time where you are. Thanks.

Melissa now has a new cental line. She quickly blew the two IV lines and then they couldn't get another one in. Even the house nurse tried and had no luck. She did not have the wound vac changed yesterday because she had no pain meds. It was changed today. Painful but not quite as bad since they let her take the tape off. They are still pleased with how well it is healing.

Melissa is having her picc line pulled tonight. Her arm has swollen and is hurting a lot. They have started two new IV lines to take the place of the line. It is not heperin she is getting in the belly,but something else to help with her not getting anymore blood clots.

A New Wrinkle

Again time has passed quickly. Saturday was a very bad day for Melissa. She had the epidural pulled. There were no pain meds in place for when it wore off. It took a while to catch up then. Dad and I stayed until midnight. She was finally falling asleep then. Sunday was a little better. She walked and sat in the chair quite a bit. Today they changed the wound vac. It is a very painful process. The doctor is pleased with how it looks. The wound care nurse says that the top part looks like it is getting small enough that it won't need the sponge much longer.

The new wrinkle is Melissa has a small blood clot in her arm around the picc line. They will increase her dosage of heperin into her belly. She never sems to do things the easy way.

Thank you for your prayers. I don't think we could get through this without God's help.

Melissa is finally back in her room. She is really tired and sleeping a lot. She had the dressing changed today and that took a lot out of her. The epidural works in some areas and not in others. It is trying to settle in her right leg. She has a lot of lines and tubes still connected although she is not continously hooked up for vitals now. She is still running a fever, feeling nauseos and her heart rate is a little high. Melissa found out today that the wound vac will stay in place for at least 3 weeks. Should make things interesting.

Melissa had surgery Monday. It was about 2 1/2 hours long. They found a tiny hole where she had surgery last time. They stitched it closed but did give her back the illiostomy. They feel that she needs to heal before putting pressure back on that part of the bowel. They will wait 6 to 9 months before they reconnect her. They also did something new during surgery. They gave her an epidural which will stay for up to 5 days. This will help the amount of pain meds she has to take. She hasn't got up to walk yet but probably will soon. They are giving her two units of blood. She is also running a high fever.

Although these things are expected they are still worrisome. Please continue to pray for healing and that the Lord guide the doctors.

This and That

Sorry about not keeping the blog up to date. Melissa is having some problems with either her computer or the Wi-Fi in the hospital. It has been hard to get on.

Her records were sent to the GI doctor at Barnes. He said that this area is not really his area of expertise but he thought she needed surgery. He did forward her records on to another GI doctor. Melissa's surgeon would like her to see another surgeon at Barnes. He is trying to make arrangements. If he agrees with him, Melissa may have surgery next week and have the illostomy bag back for a length of time.

She is not having a good week. Blood counts did come up but she is running a low grade fever. She is also in a lot of pain, part of which can be withdrawal from the pain meds. Her drain also fell out this morning. A wonderful nurse, Cheryl who we call the stoma lady helped her to fit a bag over the hole that was left so it is not so messy. Melissa knows she has been in the hospital too long when even the transport people stop and ask about how she is doing. Many of the staff have said that they are praying for her.

She did have a couple of good things happen today. A package came from a friend and she recieved an e-reader already loaded with some free books and personlized with Drew and her picture. Melissa also called the cell phone company after I talked with a friend. They gave her extra minutes to help out. We were almost out of rollover minutes and if she has surgery we will quickly go through what is left. This will help alot.

Day 50 In the Hospital this year.

It was a busy day for Melissa. She went to CT and they tried to put a drain in but it was to small for one. They did get some air out and just enough fluid to culture. The doctor thought it was funny that there was mostly air and Melissa told him it wasn't funny since he wasn't the one getting poked with a needle.

This afternoon she had a scope done of her j-pouch. They said it looked good, just a little red but that was normal since it was healing from surgery.

Drew called Barnes Hospital to get a doctor's name. They called back quickly and are willing to look at her records to see if they have any ideas. We hopefully will send them Monday and he can look at them Tuesday.

Please pray that the doctors can find the problem of the infection so they will know how to treat her. It also would be nice if it was simple to treat. I know it is all in God's time but I am getting very impatient.