Therapy Sessions

Today is starting out rough. Jennifer's very tired and a bit dizzy this morning. She hasn't been sleeping well. However, we have to trudge through therapy. The therapist has another therapist monitoring the session. Is it wrong that she warned him to stay away from me?

It's been over a week since I last posted, so I thought I'd bring everyone up to speed on progress..

At home:
Everybody's starting to settle into a routine. Kids are messing up the house. Jennifer's yelling (but not as loud as before). I'm kidding....she's as loud as ever. Just kidding again. Kids at home all day does wear her out....so much for sick leave. School starts in a month. Hooray? Poor kids haven't had much of a summer. Then there is a battle for Daddy's time...because they used their allotted Mommy time throughout the day. Such is the life of Daddy. (sigh)

At work:
Who am I kidding....Jennifer's not working -- yeah yeah...stay at home mom and stuff...but... (geez, I'm kidding). My job has been good, but hard to stay caught up with everything going on. I hope I'm not letting anybody down. It truly becomes a juggle and a challenge with time management. We can't wait for vacation. Then we can "get away" from it all (sorry for stealing your tag line Southwest Airlines). The mental break will be welcome.
Jennifer plans on returning to work right after we get back, partly because sick leave is running out. I think she's ready for the change. I hope she's physically ready. She does a lot of data entry, so the finger dexterity will get tested.

Hey..everybody at her office go easy on the questions...she'll answer questions in due time....but do ask to see the skin graft, it's pretty cool).

At the Hospital
I know this is what everybody is wanting to hear, not my musings. As I mentioned earlier, Jennifer's very tired. As I type this, she is sitting on the therapists table, sleeping. She was also sleeping while doing the exercycle earlier in the session. She's tired....welcome to my world. I've been tired since the age of 5...

Her arm (graft) is really looking good. Once its fully healed, we're still going to use the Sharpie to create temporary tattoos, but, until then, Jennifer is fine-tuning her shark attack story...that's all the rage now.

Her range of motion is getting better. The strength in her arm is improving, but we have a long way to go to overcome the atrophy that set in her shoulder and hand. It's amazing how quickly the body can deteriorate from lack of use. That's a real concern in the overall healing process. We took it for granted that the process would go well, not realizing that the surgery would impact so many areas of the body: neck, shoulder, arm, hand, fingers.....mentality.

Today's session gave her a hard workout on the arm. She can almost lift the arm out to the side at a 45 degree angle. She's 1/4 of the way there. Rotation is still limited, especially moving the arm behind her. She was worn out. This was the first time, since she was released from the hospital that we did not walk the quarter-mile breezeway from the parking garage to the hospital....she actually wanted to ride the shuttle to and fro....a sure sign she is worn out.

For all of you bad mouthing me for pushing her, I did allow her to take a nap on the way home and once we got there....before she had to pick up Grace in the thunderstorm...the rain hasn't ceased.

I think she is better rested this evening. We started the shopping for our vacation. Can't wait.

I think I have a special treat for those interested -- before and after shots:

3rd night home (June 10th) :  Notice the purplish hue....eeewww....and it oozed a lot.  Those dark spots are the holes purposefully created to allow blood and fluid to drain from underneath the graft, the pie crust effect.   Pretty cool concept.

 Day ?? I lost track of Counting - July 16th.  Most of the pie holes have closed up.  The skin is more normal in appearance, and the oozing has almost stopped completely.  Exercising causes the graft to appear as in the photo above....the oozing increases, the graft looks inflamed and darkens in color.

Once healed, don't you think we can make some cool tattoos with a Sharpie?  Let me know your thoughts.  We already have:  a kite, a family crest, the 12th Man emblem, and more.

I stated in a post a long time ago that the little 2 cm tumor hit us like a truck.  This is just a piece of it.

Have a good evening.

July 4th, gymnastics, weekend update

Just a quick note. I hope everyone had a great 4th of July Holiday. We did. I still have all my fingers.

Thursday was a visit with the physical therapist. Jennifer did some excercises for her wrist and shoulder again. She's still pretty weak in those areas, but getting better. I was "encouraging" Jennifer, so the physical therapist had me download an app on my iPad....it makes the Whip sound. :-D. Awesome. The therapist did apologize to Jennifer after I started using it. Awesome again.

Grace was at Bella and Marta Karoly's gymnastics camp this week. This is where the USA gymnastics team trains. We picked her up today. All the girls did some dance numbers, then demonstrated some skills. Bella is a fireball around the girls...very enthusiastic. His staff was great. Grace had a great time and wants to go again next year. Next week, the USA Gymnastics team arrives for their preparation for the 2012 Olympics in London. We just missed them.

The rest of this weekend is rest. Jennifer walked 4 miles today and she's feeling it. It doesn't help that she has to wear the lymphedema mask for 3 hour stretches each day.

Next week is more therapy...a day at a time.

Lymphedema

We had a lymphedema appointment today, followed by a physical therapy appointment.

The lymph system is the super highway that transports the waste away, and the lymph nodes are the "spaghetti bowl" interchanges. Wow. That sounded official. It's basically my own description of the system as I envision it.

Lymphedema is a condition caused when the body, or a specific area, cannot drain the waste fluid (proteins, fats, etc.) away properly due to blockage. As a result, the area build with the fluid, swells, and can harden. Blockage can be due to various reasons, but, in this case, we just removed 41 nodes and we also have a giant scar running across the highway.

Jennifer has lymphedema, so we met with the pathologist today to get an assessment, some therapy, training, and a really cool Epstein Facioplasty support mask......Ladieeessssssss and Gentlemennnnnnnnnn! In this corner, we have the welterweight wrestling champion, Jammin' Jenny.

Just kidding. It looks more like the part of a nun's habit that goes around the facial area. Now, if I can lay my hands on a neck brace.......

The pathologist is the same we've met with a couple of times before. He's pretty sharp. He started by asking what our concerns were. Although we haven't heard wheezing lately, Jennifer still experiences a feeling that her trach did not close properly, pronounced when she swallows and feels a pulling on her throat. He inspected the trach site and mentioned that the outer skin area may have healed/stuck to the inner trachea area, jwhich could give that sensation. So, he started stretching her skin around the trach hole to basically separate the two areas (tear them apart)...eeeewwww. The outer hole is healed, but it was hard to watch.

He examined Jennifer's swelling and made his assessment. Since the scar is blocking the highway, we have to train the body to reroute the drainage around the scar, down the neck, and into the collar/arm area, where it will drain as normal. Time to get off the freeway and take some Farm-to-Market roads. We're setting the cones. Luckily, the scar angles below the ear enough that we can redirect right over it, rather than going up and around the ear.

He next instructed Jennifer on massage techniques to open the downstream drains and work her way up the system to the swollen area....then, in reverse to push the fluid though the system. Awesome! I am totally amazed at what you can do with your body. Next thing you know, they'll be telling us that you can actually lose weight if you do physical activity -- probably by burning fictional units of energy -- lets call them calories. Hah. Just kidding again...that's purely science fiction.

He then took measurements around Jennifer's head and crafted the Facioplasty device right in front of us. Is basically a spandex and Velcro device that holds special pads made of foam. Two types of foam are used. The first type is a pad made of small, cubed foam pieces. These are placed in an cloth sleeve and shaped around the problem area of her neck. The resulting pad is shaped like an elongated pancake, but has an irregular surface area due to the cubes. The second pad is made from a smoother foam piece. He cut and shaped it on the spot so it would conform to her neck..he did an awesome job and we discussed his certifications in arts and crafts. He even joked he had a Masters in Arts and Crafts.

The first pad is worn for about thirty minutes. The irregular surface area actually breaks up the "hard" fluid, which preps the area for the next steps....the massage therapy mentioned above. We witnessed it. It was pretty cool. After Jennifer massages through the system and back, she then wears the smooth pad for at least 2-3 hours...this puts pressure on the area to help push fluid through the recently opened drain lines (FM Road 42). It also maintains an evenness in the area.

As you can tell from my long write up, we spent a lot of time on the lymphedema massage. It was very productive.

Next was the appointment with the physical therapist. Last week, Jennifer worked on stretch exercises for head, neck, arm, hand, face, tongue, lips.....
Today was strength exercises. Unfortunately, they did not hook her up to the circa 1840's gps device like last time. Today she took some strength measurements for her hands....squeezing a grip, pinching with her thumb (lateral), with her index finger and thumb, and with two fingers and a thumb. Naturally, there was clear evidence of atrophy in he left hand (where the skin graft is).

The therapist gave her a ball of putty (more like hard clay). She is to squeeze and pinch it like a stress ball to build strength and endurance in her hand and fingers. I'm more concerned that the therapist just gave my wife ammunition to throw at me or the kids.....but moreso at me.

She got to lay down and the therapist did some neck stretches and manipulation....I think Jennifer found Heaven for a moment. She may have even fallen asleep for a bit. I tried to get in on it to, but, as it turns out, the caregiver doesn't get the good treatment like the patient. What's
that about? Whoa is me.

Jennifer then worked with an elastic band to build strength in her arms and shoulder. She did great on the straight arm and bent arm stretches. The rotator cuff exercise was a bit tougher, but she did great.

The final test was that we got out at 5:00 and had to drive from the south side of Houston all the way to the north side during "holiday" traffic. We passed that too.

We also have started receiving the bills...how does this affordable healthcare act stuff work? Do I just send the bills to 1600 Pennsylvania avenue? It's free, right?

I took the kids to buy some fireworks...not a lot, but maybe a lot...remember Jennifer, sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Also remember that to forgive is the right thing to do.

I wish everybody a wonderful Fourth of July, the day, I believe, to have the most historic significance for our country, when the Declaration of Independence was finalized and signed by the 56 brave men. Remember why they took that action.

Stay safe and enjoy.