SATURDAY MORNING

Good Morning, Wow, the last couple of days have been busy, busy, busy. And unfortunately we have not been able to get out and about these last few days. Thursday of course was dialysis and made Molly feel bad and pretty much wiped her out. On top of that, there was some trouble in getting a good blood flow to and from the machine and had to stop it it once and restart. This made dialysis take 51/2 hours instead of the the 4. The rest of the day Molly was exhausted, just like she had run a marathon. Then the nephrologist (kidney doctor) came in and said he would like to put a new access line in for the dialysis. It is commonly called a "tunnel" line. It is inserted in the her right upper chest and is "tunnelled" under her skin and then the catheter end of the line is placed directly into the right atrium of her heart. This type of access is much more secure which will ultimatley give her more freedom, especailly when she begins rehab. it also has less chance of infection and should make dialysis go better. Also, her kidneys do continue to show signs of returning as they continue to produce 200cc's of output a day. While this is not nearly enough (needs to be close to 700-750) and it is only volume, it is not filtered meaning that her kidneys are not filtering yet, but it is a great sign. Molly did eat a little more on Thursday, but not much as she did not feel much like eating or doing anything for that matter. The good news is that as bad as dialysis makes her feel and seems like a "lost" day, the doctors are still impressed and pleased with her overall progress. In fact the term "rehab" is being used a lot more than "recovery" now. On Friday, I got up early as the procedure to put in the "tunnel" line was to be first thing. However, due to the wound rounds, scheduling and other "things" the procedure did not take place until almost noon. It was an easy procedure and they only use "conscious sedation" instead of anesthesia. It only lasted about 40 monutes and she did great. The down side to this was that it always takes a few hours for her to "wake back up" completely so we "lost" another day of getting up and around. During the time she was getting her new line put in, they brought a new bed for her. The old bed was designed to help take care of her skin quality, but that is looking great so she is now in a normal hospital bed, which will make it easier for her and therapy to transfer her as well as for her to move around in the bed on her own, which will help to strengthen her. Again, the word "rehab" is being used a lot more than the word "recovery." Molly did eat a little more on Friday, but still not a lot. So, her tube feedings will only be at night while she sleeps. This will help so that during the day the tube will not be hooked up so she can get out and about more. Also, it will mean that she will need to start eating more on her own to make up the difference. By not being hooked up, hopefully she will begin to feel hungery and want to eat. She wants to eat right now more for the "sensation" and feeling more normal, but because of the tube feeding, she just doesn't feel hungery. The wound team (nurses, therapists, and surgeon) said her grafts, stumps and donor sights continue to look great. Starting this weekend or the first of the week for sure they are going to put the vacuum pumps back on her stumps. This will help them to heal quicker. The had discontinued them before due to some little infections in the wounds (this is common, and nothing they worried about). Now that those have cleared up they can put the vac's back on. We are still looking at late next week, or more probably the week after to graft her stumps. Then after a few days of rest to let them attach, we will truly be looking at rehab. From the therapists point of view, they want to see her getting up out of bed each day into a chair or wheelchair. They want to get her up to their unit and start doing some upper body activities. And MOST of all they want to get her hands back to working so she start doing some of the ADL's (activities of daily living) on her own or at leat with minor assistance. This will be huge as it will make Molly feel more human again and less at the mercy of the nurses and techs. The therapist have said that her function in her hands will come back it is just going to take some time, so we as much as possible keep working on them. The reason they are so weak and have little function is due to several factors. First, the compartment syndrome that cause everyting to swell up and reduce the blood flow. Second, they remain swollen due to numerous IV's, not able to get them elevated for a long time. Third, in the critical care settings when people are not fully awake, and able to move much on their own, hands, arms legs and feet begin to "curl" up and this causes difficutly in then moving them. Fourth, just naturally weak due to non-use. All of these things combined will just mean it will take along time and a lot of effort from Molly, me and the therapist to get her hands back to functioning well. On "other" hospital news. there are currently 4 other patients in the Trauma Burn unit suffering from a strep A infection just like Molly. 2-3 years ago the nurses said was the first patient they ever had with a strep infection. So, either the infection is on the increase, or as the the one nurse put it, it is such a devastating bacteria that people who had it never made it this far. I just share this with you to keep these folks in your prayers as well as to bring some awareness to each of you. Strep infections can be deadly, and while we may not hear about them regularly, they are out there, and the medical profession is just now learning how to fight it best to not only save victims lives, but to save quality of life as well. SPECIFIC PRAYER AREAS

• Hands and arm strength and return of normal function
• Wounds to continue healing
• Kidneys to return to function so Molly can get off dialysis completely. We lose a whole day of therapy, eating, etc three days a week due to dialysis.
• Spirits, hers and mine.
• The many lives affected by Strep infections, and trauma in general
• Continued direction for Molly and I. (we continue to talk and pray about what God wants us to do with this, and beleive and feel that we can truly help lots of people by sharing our experience) We just are not sure what all the encompasses just yet.

God bless you all!

Love,

Jamey & Molly

jameyandmolly@gmail.com to email us comments directly

http://www.mfrenchtrek.blogspot.com/ to learn more about Molly's illness from the very beginning