A Work In Progress

A Work In Progress

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Scott Is Still Hospitalized in New York for Father's Day

Hi Friends and Family!

Many prayers are needed for peace for Scott tonight.  Tomorrow (Father's Day) it will be 31 days since Scott and Debbie have seen or hugged their kids.  This makes me so sad.  All they want is to go home, but Scott is still hospitalized.  Please treasure the time you have with your kids, and your Father's (if they are still living) tomorrow.  It's easy to take for granted.  Jonathan and I don't have any special plans tomorrow.  This will be my 17th Father's Day without my Dad and Jonathan's 4th Father's Day without his Dad.  I'm thankful we have each other.  We will probably take Mookie for a walk at the park!  Life is short. Life is tough.  God is Faithful.  I'm Thankful that we have a loving Heavenly Father!  Happy Father's Day to Scott!  May God strengthen you and give you His Peace, and I'm praying that you can quickly return home to your Family.  You are loved!  None of this pain is wasted.  God promises to work it out for your Good and His Glory!  Love you! :-)

Here are Debbie's recent Caring Bridge Updates regarding Scott:

Thursday, June 16th, 2016

Scott's weight today was down another 3 lbs from yesterday. He is now 206, which is what he weighed the morning of surgery 2 weeks ago. He still has some water weight to lose though. I'm sure he will end up weighing less due to his small appetite, and not eating at all for 5 days after surgery.

IR got Scott in for his procedure around 11 AM today. They drained 30cc's from the tube that they inserted. They left the drainage tube in, and once the culture comes back to show whether or not there is any infection, it may be able to come out. We're not crossing our fingers though. 

This morning, the surgeons mentioned possibly having to open up his incision from surgery 2 weeks ago to drain some fluid from behind it. They said they would handle the fluid by his liver first though. Now that they tackled that procedure today, we were told that he shouldn't eat or drink anything after midnight again. He will probably be taken tomorrow to check out his incision, which is red and swollen.

We FaceTimed with the kids tonight, which we always look forward to. We even got to say hi to Sophie (our dog). The kids are having lots of fun, but they obviously miss us more and more every day, and vice versa! They are heading to MN for the weekend to spend time with Scott's sister Tracy (Paul) Schuler and their family. That should be a good distraction for them since they can't be with Scott on Father's Day. 😔

The nurse took Scott's temperature before our evening laps, and he has a fever again. He still did 8 laps at 10, took a break, and did 8 more laps at 11:15. I better get some sleep in case the surgeons come in early to talk to us about the plans for our day. 

Day by day, new families come and go on this floor. Please say a prayer for all of these precious little people and their families.  It truly breaks my heart! 

There is another DSRCT patient on our floor as well. His fiancé and I went to the 15th floor for over an hour of girl time this evening. They are also in their 30's, and are experiencing a much longer stay than they had hoped for. His surgery was the day before Scott's. God definitely has a way of bringing sunshine to some not so sunny times in our life. Having her here to talk to was just what I needed today!  

Another ray of sunshine was our 6 year old, Myles. Our daughter Lexi sent us a video of him, and I must have watched it about 20 times today. His adorable face and sweet sounding voice made us smile and laugh so much. He is so funny. If you have FaceBook, you can watch his video on my page. He was eating onion and talking about what his wife would do if he was married. 😆

Good night! If this didn't make much sense, it could be due to the fact that I was falling asleep as I was writing it. 

Friday, June 17th

As of 9:30PM tonight, Scott is down another 3 lbs! He weighs 202.8 currently. He is looking smaller and smaller by the day.

We think it was around 8AM this morning that the nurse came to take us to the procedure room. We were still half asleep. Dr. LaQuaglia opened the lower part of his incision and removed any unwanted fluid/etc. He placed a tube on top of the repaired incision site that is connected to a wound VAC machine to keep the incision free of fluids and infection. That will remain until Monday or Tuesday. At that point, it will be re evaluated.

They removed the right drainage tube while he was under. The left drainage tube remains. It is still draining too much to be taken out yet.

After he returned from the procedure, a lady from IR came to his room and removed the drain that was put in yesterday. We never heard if there was infection found in the fluid that was drained, so we assume all is well. We've heard that no news is good news here.

Scott slept, rested in bed all day, and watched tv. It was a rough morning, so he needed the rest throughout the day!

At 5PM, his low grade fever returned. Hopefully they will figure out his fevers once and for all! They sure are trying many different things. At least his fevers aren't getting up near 104 and 105 anymore! We are thankful for that.

We finished dinner after 9, and then walked 8 laps. We took a 45 minute break and walked another 8 laps.

I have to add in a high for the day. There is a candy cart that comes by every room. I think they come by once or twice a week. I'm not really sure. I was napping today when they came by, so I missed the delicious chocolate. Scott said he was fine, and didn't want anything. When I woke up, I asked our nurse if the cart was still on the floor. She asked a male nurse who just finished his shift for the day. He found out that they were gone already. Our nurse gathered some mini candy bars for me from somewhere. That was really sweet!

About 15 minutes later, the male nurse who had finished his shift knocks on our door and hands me a bag. He said he heard that Scott wanted Twizzlers and that I wanted chocolate. He walked to a store and BOUGHT us candy! I was floored, and he had walked away before I could thank him. What a kind and generous human being! My heart was really touched by his kindness! He went all out, and candy is NOT cheap around here! I want to make sure he knows how much that meant to me. Hopefully he works this weekend.

Please pray for us to have an uneventful, fever free weekend. Enjoy your weekend wherever you may be! Thank you for the continued prayers for Scott's recovery! God Bless you all!

Another Act of Kindness
15 Hours Ago

Everyone has been so good to us at this hospital. Of course we don't want to be here, but they are trying to make it less difficult for us.

Nurses, doctors, social worker, and other staff have come in to ask us how they can help. What can we get for you? Would a massage help? Do you want a chaplain? Would you like to speak to a counselor? These things are not Scott's idea of healing. He just wants to go home and be with our kids! We say to all of these questions, "Just tell us what we can do to get out of here, and we'll do it!" Well, we have been doing everything right, but it's not God's plan for us to leave yet.

The small thoughtful things are what get us through: the friendly nurse who brought us candy last night, the cards we receive from people that we never would have expected, a round brush in the mail from my Mom, because I didn't have one here, the friendly RSA (food service lady) who gave me a hug and a devotional book just when I needed it the most, our nurse Leah - who pulled me aside in the hall last night to give me her e-mail so I could send her pictures of our kids to blow up for our room for us to look at, Pastor Bourman and Vicar Spaude making a special 45 minute trip to visit us and share God's Word with us, the e-mails, texts, and calls to let us know you are thinking of us and we really are not alone, the special cards in the mail from our kids, that they worked so hard to make!

We don't need much, but the little things are what we will always remember about this experience. We are pretty simple people.

What do we need? We need the simple things that don't cost any money. The nurses and doctors who tear up when we talk about our kids, because they can't imagine being apart from their own children for this long, shows how much they truly care and are doing everything in their power to help us get home.

Whatever you're doing, especially the prayers for us night and day are greatly appreciated! A huge thank you to everyone for whatever you are doing. Nothing goes unnoticed, and we are thankful for the simple things.

We we love you all, and miss everyone so much!

No comments: