Just wanted you all to know that we got a call from Michael this morning. Grace is being discharged from the haus sik today. She will have a follow up appt. next Tues., but she is doing much better now. Praise the Lord! Thank you all for praying!
Until Every Child Knows,
Big Jim
Matt. 19:14
James 1:27
From Lyle on Michelle, thank you for your continued prayers.
On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 12:32 AM, lyle_vanklompenberg
Dear friends,
I just stepped away from the hospital for a little bit, so I thought I would take this opportunity to send out an update on how Michelle has been since I wrote yesterday. Yesterday evening, Michelle stated to feel very, very uncomfortable with her back again (close to her shoulder blade). They ended up giving her some medication to calm that down. In addition, they gave her a sleeping pill for last night, and she was able to sleep pretty well throughout the night. The nurses have felt badly for Michelle being in the loud room she is in with the three other ladies, and they have indicated she will be getting moved to a private or semi-private room in about an hour. That was a huge encouragement.
Last night, the doctor came in and had a conversation with us to sort out what we will do going forward. The fact that the transesophagial electrocardiogram (or something like that, which they just call the “TOE”) cannot take place until Friday morning is meaning that we will need to delay our flights home, which had been scheduled for Friday. In talking to the neurologist more, he indicated that he would really like to get another CT scan done of Michelle with contrast next week to ensure that the artery in her brain that he thought may still be in spasm has calmed down before he sends us back to PNG. Otherwise, he would be nervous that she could restroke again. Since she just had her MRI done a couple days ago, he felt it would make most sense to wait for this new CT scan until Wednesday or Thursday of next week. That would then mean we would need to plan to return home next Friday. While not excited about the idea of being away from home and our precious kids for another week, we are planning to comply with what the doctor feels is most prudent. The up side to this is that we will be around longer for the neurologist to try a few different medications to help some of her symptoms, and she will also be able to have daily physiotherapy appointments.
This morning, Michelle had her first physio appointment, and it went really well. They worked some on her shoulder/back area and were able to help Michelle get much more comfortable raising her left arm. They plan to do more of that each weekday until we leave. Hopefully this will be a help in getting a lot of those uncomfortable feelings out of her back.
Just before noon, Michelle had an appointment with a neuro-ophthalmologist, Dr. Anthony Pane. This guy seemed really sharp and has written three books, one of which he wrote with a doctor from John Hopkins University that is who he would consider the top neuro-opthalmologist in the world. At the appointment, they determined her eyes are very healthy. They also checked how well she can see in her peripheral with her eyes pointed straight ahead (using something called a “Field test” or something – we don’t speak fluent Australian English yet J). What the test showed is that Michelle has lost all of her vision in the upper left quadrant in each eye and a significant portion of her vision on her lower left quadrant. This was extremely difficult to hear and brought out a lot of emotion, as the thought of being able to drive, to work as a nurse, etc. all started to seem in doubt. The doctor reassured her that a number of people are able to train their body to just scan the eyes differently than in the past and feel that after 6 months or a year have significant improvement in their functionality of seeing even if the computer test would not show much difference in actual ability of the eyes to see. He suggested to do a similar test in a number of months to see if there is any improvement, but he doesn’t expect much. We will pray for real improvement in her eyes, as we know a Master Healer that is able to give sight that the top doctors cannot. J
Thanks for praying with us and going through all this with us. It has been a very emotional, difficult time. Hearing back from many of you and knowing others of you and all that a number of you have gone through yourselves, we feel like this trial is not nearly as great as some of you have had to go through. Knowing the health battles others have had and their insights that bring encouragement makes us pray that Michelle will be even better at encouraging others that are struggling in the future as she has this experience to draw from. We love you all and cherish your ongoing prayers!
Love,
Lyle
No comments:
Post a Comment