Good to hear good news. I will pray until we hear she is sent home for a full recovery. Praise God!
Finally I feel able to manage a full update!
It's been 4 days and a bit now since Sara's bicycle accident, and almost 3-1/2 days since her surgery. We've been very blessed by her survival and progress, and by the prayers and concern shown by so many, including so very many here at FR.
Today's been the first day that felt like we were no longer in the midst of a huge, urgent crisis. The tornadoes of night-before-last probably prolonged the major stress some... after being up until 3 am with those (on top of everything else) I spent yesterday just about wiped out. But last night I was able to get a decent night's sleep for the first time since the accident, and (thank God) Sara's condition has continued to improve.
Her surgeon said again that this was a really serious accident, but that she was making very good progress. I didn't realize until this evening though that if things had been just a little bit different, Sara could've bled to death within minutes. Instead, she is solidly on the road to recovery.
I also learned from Sara herself today that the original plan after her surgery (which in itself went well) had been to keep her in pediatric intensive care for two days. She made such quick progress, though, that she made it through the PICU in just one day. Again, I credit her spirit, the doctors' and nurses' skill, your prayers, our love, and God's help for her quick progress.
Sara now has the annoying tube out of her nose/ stomach, so we are down to 4 tubes of various kinds. She has a morphine epidural but has never used it quite as much as they expected, again a sign of things going really well. The epidural may come out tomorrow, in fact.
She is supposed to get out of bed 4 times a day; most of her get-ups were very brief today but this evening I walked with her for about half an hour. Sara's younger sisters and I went with her to look at the fish in the pediatric aquarium, then back to the room to fetch her two borrowed movies, return those to the movie kiosk and borrow two more.
One interesting comment: Yesterday Sara was fielding a few questions from a family friend via phone, who asked what happened. Her reply: "I hurt myself on my bicycle."
My immediate thought: wow, no hint of casting about for someone or something to blame for this unprecedented tragedy in her life, just "this is what I did and this is what happened as a result." It made me feel that already she is assuming a lot of responsibility for her own life, and I think that approach to life will serve her well.
The way things are going now, it's looking like we could be out of the hospital by the end of this week. I'm still a bit concerned about pancreas function, but it looks to me as a layman that there are maybe some encouraging signs also with that. By that, I mean that today she was allowed something more than ice chips for the first time since the accident. They've been giving her bits of jello, popsicles, grape and apple juice - all things with sugar.
So it looks to me as a layman that either they think she can handle it with zero problems, or they think it's good to get the pancreas to adjust to having some sugar right off the bat. But I don't know anything about these issues so maybe somebody who does can give some feedback? (Incidentally, thanks to griffin for the info about a girl who had such a similar incident!)
To sum up, we're all very encouraged, and I wanted to let everyone who's prayed for us know the excellent results of your prayers. Assuming all goes smoothly from this point, I hope to do one more update that, God willing, will be the final one, when Sara gets out of the hospital. For that, I'll probably see if Sara herself might be willing to also contribute a bit from her own perspective. I know that she appreciates all of the prayers and concern.
Thanks again, "Luke"