Surgery

Well here we are, the day after surgery, on the couch recliner my new favorite place in the world! And yes I am pecking left handed. The surgery went great according to the doctor. They took the large piece out of my forearm and I have a very large soft cast on my arm. I have to keep it completely still, not even moving my fingers. When I get up to go to the bathroom, or get up to do anything, I have to put on a sling. They took a large piece of skin off of the top of my right thigh for the skin graft so I have a very large three-layer bandage on it that is taped to my leg and safety pinned to my shorts to keep it from sliding down when I go to the bathroom! I also had a large incision under my right arm where they removed a lymph node to be tested. I also have a drain hose, about two feet long, coming out of that incision. It has to be drained every so often. The pain has been very manageable. Much better than we thought it would be which we are very grateful for! Thank you so much to all of you for your prayers, thoughts, calls, and messages. Thanks to all who were at the hospital, and all who came by the house yesterday, it meant the world to us. And to Josh, your the best! To my wife, you are the best wife and nurse ever. I would never want to do this without her! I am trying to be a good patient! She pretty much has to do everything for me, getting up every four hours at night to give me medicine, cook, feed me, drain the hose, help me get up and down, and the list goes on. She is incredible! I am going to let her finish this blog today because I just took my medicine and feel a nap coming on! But I wanted to say thanks again and we love you guys!

He pretty much said it all... and no I do not pay him to say anything nice about me:) He's doing great, praying the pain continues to stay manageable for him. And he is being a great patient! So far so good... We will not hear any new results for a few days, possibly even early next week. As soon as the doctor hears anything he will call us. We will see him next Tuesday, hopefully the drain will be removed and that will be one less thing Andy has to deal with. I have to say we have been greatly blessed with our group of doctors, the Dermatologist and her nurse Jan has stayed in contact throughout all of this. Jan called yesterday to check on him, even said she had thought about coming up to the hospital to sit with us, since it was her day off, but she was worried we would be bothered since we really don't know her. Of course we would have been honored, but glad she didn't spend a day off sitting at a boring hospital:) It's amazing to us that she has taken the time to encourage us and help in any way she can. The surgeon, Dr. Garber called the night before surgery to check on him, and again last night. He made sure we had all his numbers so we could call any time day or night if needed. This has truly been a God thing, we picked Dr. Kendrick(dermatologist) off a list from the insurance web site with no referrals or information, and in turn she has referred us to the others, to know that God has his hand in every little detail is amazing!! Everything has gone smoothly and quickly and can only pray it continues that way. We are humbled by all the prayers and support we have from all our family, friends and strangers that have been been and will continue to pray for us. We could not have gone through this as well as we have without all that everyone has done for us. Thank you!!!! We have been asked numerous times over the last two weeks if we need anything, right now there really is not anything we need, however, the prayers,visits, phone calls and messages help greatly, so keep them coming;)


Remember every day to put one foot in front of the other, drink a lot of water, and don't forget to breathe.......