Recovering

Today has been a good day.  They took him off the epidural this morning and have been able to manage his pain well.  He's been up and on the side of the bed.  It's so good to see his leg bending like it is!  It's not gonna be an easy recovery, but he is up to it because he's so thankful for how successful things are going.  We're hoping to go home tomorrow if all is well.  We're ready to get home and get back to the kids.  They always step up to the plate in such a big way to make sure they take care of each other and take care of things while we're gone.  God is so good!  He has answered so many prayers and we're grateful for everyone who has prayed for us!  God bless~

It's been a pretty quiet day.  They've kept him pretty comfortable and just keep his leg on the CPM machine so it will keep moving while he's asleep.  All in all things are good~

Good News!

Well he's out of surgery and it went very well!  They are really pleased with everything so that is good news!  They shaved off quite an extensive amount of bone that had formed where it wasn't supposed to and was causing him trouble.  They also went in and released all the quad muscle that had adhered to the rod in his thigh.  They said it was pretty bad and took quite a bit of work (about 2 hrs longer than expected), but got all of it separated from the rod and got his knee to bend to 110 degrees.  This was HUGE because his knee hasn't been able to bend much at all since the accident.  There were so many risks involved in this surgery, but it all went without any complications and for that we are so grateful!  He is now on a machine that is continually bending his knee to keep the maximum motion range to prevent it happening again.  They have him on an epidural to keep him comfortable while this is in place.  They said it is common to lose range of motion after surgery, but we know that through prayer and Dan's hard work God is going to prevent that from happening!  Thank you so much for all of your prayers!  God answered them!  I'll keep you posted~ 

Surgery day~

Well, we left early this morning and got here and got him all situated.  His nerves are long gone because the "feel good" medicine has kicked in!  They're gonna take him back and surgery should take a couple of hours.  The plan is to get him quite a bit of motion in that knee and shave off the excess bone that's growing, so that's what we're praying for!  Now we wait~

Dan had an appointment yesterday in Columbia.  He's 5 1/2 months out and they are VERY pleased.  You can see all this new bone growth and it's pretty solid now.  It's always cool to see the evidence of what we're believing God to do!  He will be having surgery again on the 24th of this month.  It's going to be more invasive than we thought and will entail a couple of things.  Early on the tissue adhered to the rod inserted in his thigh and prevents his knee from bending.  They will go in along the side of his knee and up into the thigh to release it.  The other area to fix is on the side of his femur where the big break was.  With all this new bone growth, there's an area splintering off so they will saw if off.  They will look at keeping him a few days to put him on a machine right out of surgery that will have that knee bending.  Then they'll proceed with agressive therapy to get the maximum results out of this.  There are a couple of big risks involved and this is where we need people to pray.  The first is, when they go in at his knee there is a risk of the tendon in his knee snapping.  This would not be good at all.  After all this he doesn't want a knee replacement!  They will do everything to prevent it, but we will be in much prayer about it.  The second is, they can't guarantee how much movement this will give him and sometimes it decreases over time.  We believe that it's God's will that he be completely restored so we are asking God to let this surgery be very successful.  He needs to be able to bend his knee!  To say that Dan is weary of all of this would be a great understatement.  The last 5 1/2 months of his life have been radically changed and some days it's hard for him to see a day when things are normal again.  But, this we know... We serve an AMAZING God who is able to do more (and has done more) than we can even think or imagine.  He has shown himself to be faithful at every turn and we stand on the promise that He will be faithful to complete it!  You will never know what your prayers have meant to us and the difference they've made.  We believe prayer changes things so when we're confronted with what the Drs tell us is truth we know that we hold on to what the real TRUTH is.  God Bless!