Post Op Update #3

Shirlayne is continuing to take short walks around the hospital floor each time she gets up. Her boot helps to give her foot and ankle additional stability for balance. When she walks it does stretch the muscle in her calf which causes some pain. But, we think that it is "good" pain and that using and stretching this muscle will help it and the nerve controlling it back to normal. Shirlayne has had her catheter and drain line removed, and has had all the IV's removed. She is now using only oral medications to control the pain.

Shirlayne's boot with wings.

Prog. Erdogru explained that Shirlayne's surgery was more difficult because of the thickness of her abdominal wall. In fact, during the surgery, Prof. Erdogru had the nurses call around to other hospitals in the area to locate longer instruments. They made those calls  and he received those instruments while still in surgery, which helped him finish the surgery. Because of this issue Shirlayne has one additional incision that needed to be made in order to complete the surgery. Prof. Erdogru is still very concerned and sincerely apologetic over what happened to Shirlayne's leg and is already taking measures to change the way the patients leg will be supported in future surgeries. He hopes  to avoid this same issue happening to someone else. He has already ordered some new equipment for the hospital which supports the patient differently, and hopefully will avoid someone else having the same issue. Prof. Erdogru is going to review the surgery video with us and show us the nerve and the decompression. We are looking forward to that.

Shirlayne's pelvic area is still very numb.There has been some occasional pain in her left side, but that could be from many different things and does not necessary indicate whether the surgery was successful or not. She is still very swollen inside, and it will likely be a few more days before she can distinguish various types of pain

One last thing, Shirlayne is requesting a nice big bowl of chicken noodle soup, if any of you know how we can get that here in Turkey. If not, I have a feeling it will be on the first to eat list when we return. For me, I have seen Coke and Pepsi, in many different places, but I have yet to find a can of Mountain Dew.