Mike's Going Home!

Hello friends,

We just received the news that Mike should be discharged this afternoon. We are waiting on final sign-offs from the ENT team and the Trauma team. Praise God! We can't wait to go home to our kids!

Mike's vocal cord surgery this morning went well. Dr. Kadin, the lead surgeon, said she can't give any guarantee of complete success, but she thinks it went pretty well considering the amount of damage to his cartilage in that area. She said she is "hoping the cartilage they attached to the vocal cord will stay put." There is also a nerve that connects to all that, and it is damaged but she cannot tell to what degree as it winds in and out of all his shattered/pieced together cartilage. She doesn't believe it was severed completely which is good.

Mike can start talking gently and quietly in small amounts right away, but should not overdo talking in the next few weeks. There is still quite a bit of swelling and bruising that needs to heal. We can already tell that his voice is slightly improved, and we will hopefully hear improvement in his voice over the next few weeks. However, nerves can take up to a year to heal. So if nerve damage is part of the problem, we will need to be patient.

The ENT just removed his trach so that spot can begin to heal up. Now to just get a few more IV lines out of him. He is very thankful for all of his docs here. They have done an excellent job patching him back up. This has been a long and exhausting 13 days in the hospital, but we are thankful for the progress made and ready to tackle the next stage of this journey of healing at home. Mike will certainly have follow-up appointments in his future for his eyes, vocal cord, and fractured facial bones and hand, but we'll gladly walk into this next stage since it means living at home. 

Thank you to all of you who are continuing to pray for us and support us in such tangible ways. We are so very blessed, and we thank God for another day to live and serve Him. The future of many things may be a little uncertain for us right now, but God is faithful, and we will rest in that.