keep praying

Wendy had an uneventful night. The doctors say she's ok, but that there is room for improvement. Her recovery is a narrow road and she must stay on track. Her systems are still trying to figure out what happened and not everything is working just yet. Her body needs to absorb fluids. One of Wendy's and the family's favorite nurses, Nurse Chris explained that there are "liters upon liters of excessive fluids in her body." The exorbitant amount of fluids are causing her body to swell. At this point her swelling could take weeks to go down. Her bowels need to wake up. She still has a NG tube in her nose and it will have to stay in, until her bowels start working. The tube is very painful, so the sooner that comes out the better.

She is going to remain in the ICU under constant supervision until Monday. If she is stable enough they will move her to a regular hospital room where she will stay through the end of the week. According to the doctors, it is a good sign that she is miserable. She is aware of the pain, complaining about her condition, trying to move her body to get comfortable, and in general is just fighting every step of the way. Most patients that have had a surgery of this gravity just lay there because dealing with this comparable pain is just too exhausting, emotionally and physically. GO WENDY GO!

Wendy's throat is extremely sore and raw and she still can't have any fluids. Because of the severity of pain in her throat she is having a hard time talking and still doesn't have a voice. The doctors said there is no reason she shouldn't be talking yet. The doctors still have mixed opinions about her quality of breathing. They want to see improvement. One way her breathing will improve is if she gets up. They sill aren't sure why her right leg has no feeling. One thought is that there were complications with the femoral artery when they were trying to do the bypass. They had moments to complete the bypass when she was being kept alive by the heart and lung machine. The bypass into the femoral artery wasn't working so they had to move to an artery near her arm. The bypass into that artery was successful. GO GOD GO!

The BIG physical goal for Wendy today is to get her to stand up with the help of two nurses and a walker. They want her to stand on her left leg while using the walker to help stand up. They then want her to go from a standing position to a sitting position. They'll have her hang out upright in the chair for as long as she can last. Getting her up is crucial to getting the blood circulating and to her recovery.

Pray...

• She is strong today when they get her up. That she can stand and sit for a good amount of time.

• Her throat feels better and she can talk.

• Blood circulates, swelling goes down, and lung capacity improves so Wendy can drink something SOON.
  

• Pray for Micah's health so he can get back into that ICU room to be with Wendy.
  

• Her systems perk up, especially her bowels so she can say goodbye to that NG tube.
  

• Safe travels for Wendy's brother Wade as he travels home. Safe travels for Wendy's best friends, Sarah and Marissa as they travel to take over TLC of Wendy.