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Update!

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"

Fellow freepers,

First, I would like to really thank everybody for their prayers and concern for Sara, our 12-year-old daughter. You guys have provided just about the most wonderful prayer support anybody could ask for. Apologies that I haven't been able to answer every comment (or even every freepmail). I've read them all and want you to know that I really appreciate every one.

Secondly, I had hoped to be closing out this thread about now. Instead, I'm going to be asking for more prayer until we can get Sara's body completely healed and recovered.

Our daughter was sent home from the hospital yesterday. But all is definitely NOT as well as I would like it to be.

Her incision developed an infection. As a result, one of the doctors opened up the incision a couple of days ago, and she's been sent home with an open incision.

To describe this: It is an entirely open wound, literally about an inch deep into her body, and about 8 inches long. Obviously, this goes far below her skin. It is like a deep open trench in her body that runs up and down along her torso.

My wife is supposed to change the dressing on it twice a day, packing gauze into it that has some saline solution.

As far as I know, the doctors don't have any plans to reclose the wound, just leave it open and let things go from there.

I am concerned about how long such a wound might take to heal, and even more concerned about the possibility of a worse infection developing. Not being a doctor, I'm not up on best practices when it comes to care of such a wound (although I'm about to begin doing as much research as I can on the subject), but I am also not certain that Sara is getting as good of care as she might.

One of the issues that may be relevant: We do not currently have good insurance... or any insurance, except for state-provided medicaid which is supposed to provide coverage for the kids. So I wonder whether we are being treated a bit differently. I've been working hard for the past several years to recover from financial disaster a few years ago, and I've finally succeeded in building my business to where it's providing income above the poverty line for our large family, but we still can't afford health insurance. (As an indication of our financial status, even though we're FAR better off than we were, at this point we still have only one vehicle for our family and my business.)

Our 2-1/2 year old also has a respiratory infection of some kind (snotty nose and coughing). And I am concerned about this as well.

So I would like once again to ask for your prayers for our daughter. Almost 10 days after the accident, it unfortunately appears that we are far from over this. If anybody can point to some detailed specific medical guidance or contribute some good knowledge as to what we should do in order to maximize her chances of a complete, swift, reliable recovery, that would be appreciated as well.

Thanks again, "Luke"