JoLynne shaved my leg...

Here is a quick update on how things are going.

My recovery seems to be going along nicely.  My pain levels continue to diminish,  I am walking pretty good now even though it is a bit slow, my eyesight is improving every day.

hmm...sounds like me

We went to the eye doctor yesterday.  This was that appointment that Troy miraculously help us to get.  It was a long appointment with a lot of tests.  I am really overprotective of my eyes anyway so this kind of stuff is hard for me.  I was doing pretty well until they started poking my eyes with q-tips and trying to drag them to the side to make sure that they weren't "tethered".  Wow, even numb that was really getting me.  The MRI also took forever.  I was about 90 minutes in the tube.  They just wanted to be very careful.  The long and short of the day was that my lateral rectus muscle on the right eye was damaged or maybe just displaced during surgery.  They say it will take at least 6 weeks to know if it will heal itself or if they will need to intervene in some way.

This morning we met with the microvascular surgeon.  He was very happy with the outcome.  He was so positive.  He talked about how the graft looked perfect and that how once it was all healed he could shape and contour it to my face so it looked natural.  He talked about how he could use a laser to make the colors match and how if the facial nerve didn't heal he could do a facial re-animation surgery.  He mentioned again what a miracle it was that I could close my eye.  I guess the most important thing that he said to me was "Eric, I have given this area and excellent blood supply.  Now those T-cells will have a way of getting in there and getting the job done."  That makes me very happy.

Monkey Jungle with Vivian and JoLynne

We still haven't heard back on histology from Houston.  I emailed this morning and they wrote right back.  Dr. Gottschalk had to go to Germany.  Sadly his mother has colon cancer.  Even though he is gone, Dr. Wang thought that they would have some results back very soon.

So, my face now has leg hairs on it.  Weird.   JoLynne finally had to get out a razor and shave them.  Thankfully she is well practiced at that kind of thing.  That, however, is the first time in our 31 years of marriage that she has shaved my leg.

I have now been cleared to eat whatever I want.  Three days ago I took my first drink of water.  It didn't come out my nose or go down my lungs or pour out my cheek.  It was amazing.  I just sat there crying.  Sweet JoLynne just came and hugged me and said,  "Now it's leaking out your eyes."

This morning I ate three scrambled eggs and orange juice.  Truly a miracle.