First Follow Up Doc Visit

Hello again to our handful of faithful blog readers! Yesterday was Terrie's first follow up visit with her surgeon since we came home. It had been exactly 4 weeks and one day since her surgery. In short, she appears to be right on schedule with her recovery. We spent about an hour total with Dr. Savcenko (pron: "Sav" as in "have" and then "chenko") and his nurse, Debbie. She came in first and answered all our questions and explained in great detail why Terrie's leg is healing at the rate it is and what to expect in the recuperation process. Dr. Savcenko added more explanation, principally reviewing the surgery itself and why he did the things the did during it. One of the significant things that has made Terrie's leg so sore is that they actually did more digging than usual with the scope to extract veins from her right leg. Part of what they pulled out was unusable, so they went further. At 4 weeks from the surgery, they say she is just under half way to the front end of her healing time (9wks), but it could take as long as 12 weeks to really be back to normal. The good news is that she is doing everything right for her recovery. Terrie is an excellent patient and follows the doc's orders to the letter. It definitely has helped. She is off all pain meds - and actually was using nothing more than Advil or ES Tylenol. She likely will not even take those now. She walks 3 times a day for at least 30 minutes each and keeps her leg propped up very high when she is lying down. She astounded the nurse when she entered the doc's office yesterday because they thought she looked so good - see the pic in this blog with our granddaughter, Keeley. That was just after we returned from the doc visit. God has certainly watched over Terrie from way before we discovered the need for surgery. And He has watched over us during the whole process, due in no small part to all your constant & earnest prayers for her. Thank you again for your intercession for my dear Terrie! And thanks again to all the wonderful cooks who set an excellent banquet table for our family day after day! What a blessing you all have been! Who knows when I'll write more? We'll see!

First Week Home

Well, I know I said that I might be out of blogging, but so many of you have told me you enjoyed the blog, that I thought I'd continue with an update or two. Terrie has continued to improve since coming home. As you can imagine, there have been many uncomfortable moments as she adjusted to her new recuperation setting and to getting all her sore places better. Her poor body has taken quite a beating to get this heart situation improved! It's worth it in the long run, but right now, it's a real pain - in fact, several of them! In particular, you can pray for her right leg to continue healing and for her to regain full use of it very soon - it's painful, stiff & very bruised right now. Also pray for her tongue and throat, as well as her right ear & right side of her head. She started on some new medication today to help alleviate the pain in that area. It is also difficult to know how much activity she needs to do to get better as fast as possible as opposed to how much time she needs to rest and stay off her leg so it won't swell up again. Just pray for all of this to come naturally to her. Terrie's mom & her husband, Jack, went back to Lubbock on Monday. They were a tremendous blessing to us for the first week at home! And we have already begun to be blessed by the food brought by some of you who have been prayerfully following us along this journey. Wow! Thanks so much! It really helps! May God richly bless you for your generosity! Please let me know if you are still reading this blog so I will know whether I need to continue. Thanks!

Home!

As of about 12:30 PM today, Terrie and I are back home! Yea! She finally got a wonderful shower, washed her hair and put on some new pajamas that our 3 sweet children had bought her. She had several other nice things from them in her welcome home packet: body & foot lotions, favorite gum, Starbucks insulated water cup, flowers & new magazines. We came home to a hot plate of migas, courtesy of Papa Jack & Mama Keeci, and began to settle in to getting my girl well. Once again, we are so thankful for all the prayers and embraces and visits that we have had from all of you. God has been so good through this process so far and we expect Him to see Terrie through to complete healing. We were thoroughly impressed with the quality of care we received at HEB hospital. We received excellent attention from people who truly cared. It was evident in how we were treated and served. The dox were excellent. The nurses were incredible. The food was..... well, hospital food. Now that we are back in our casa, I'm not sure how much I will be adding to this blog in the future. There may be a few more updates. We'll see. In the meantime, please feel free to email me at any time and we can have an e-versation! I'm at charley.taylor@rhchurch.org. God bless you all!

CSU Day 6 - 10 AM

We are awaiting our final dismissal procedure. A few minutes ago, Terrie had a sonogram of her right leg. She is really tender and bruised in the right calf and where one doc thought it was all totally normal after the trauma of harvesting a vein, the other doc thought it wise to check for blood clots. Hence, the sonogram. The tech said he didn't see any cause for alarm, but of course, the doc will have to read the results before clearing us for dismissal. So, now we are waiting. If we are very fortunate, we will get to leave while the day is still relatively young. But we are not holding our breath! I'll keep ya posted.

CSU Day 5 - 2:30 PM

In my last post I mentioned that we will be going home tomorrow (Tuesday) instead of today. With that in view, I thought I'd address the situation of food being brought to our home. Terrie's mom will be here for the first week, so we will likely not need alimentary assistance during that time. However, when she leaves, for those of you who want to bring us something to eat, please contact Angie Peterson. She is in our Care Group and has offered to coordinate all the food plans for our family. Her email is angie@petersonclan.net. Thank you so much for your generous offers to help us in any way and also for already offering to bring food. Angie will help you make your plans. Have a blessed evening!

CSU Day 5 - 11:30 AM

Although things are going well and the surgeon says Terrie is healing like she should, we are going to take advantage of the good hospital care for one more day. The surgeon said that the decision is hers and that a 7 day stay is the average after heart surgery, so he thought that one more day here is just fine. (Tomorrow will be a week after her surgery) Terrie still has some swelling in her legs, as well as being very tender in the areas of her stitches. She has sutures in both legs, but the right calf hurts the most. The chest wound hurts too, but the leg is more painful. Of course, I want her to stay as long as she feels necessary. I'm along for the ride to make sure she has everything she needs. My department head and co-workers at the church office are wonderful, telling me to do whatever I need to do to serve Terrie and they continue to do things to serve me as well. God has blessed us to an incredible degree through this whole process! We are so thankful and will continue to ask His blessings over the next several weeks of recovery. Thanks for joining us in those requests! May you have a blessed day!

CSU Day 4 - 11:30 PM

Terrie's progress continues. Aside from some swelling in her legs, her health is steadily improving. She made several walking trips to the other end of the hallway today, even making 3 or 4 round trips in a single outing! Terrie's sister, Deborah, spent the morning and early afternoon with her today as I went to RHCC to carry out some of my ministry duties with new members. It still looks like we are on track to be dismissed tomorrow. Terrie would like to see her surgeon one more time tomorrow before being dismissed. We also expect that someone will give us a good briefing on how to care for her once we do get home. Hopefully, the next time I post a blog, it will be from our home with Terrie there beside me. Thanks for staying tuned!