Prayer Request

So, I have a prayer request for you... my faithful readers.

Can you pray for me?  For complete recovery, both physical and mental/emotional?

The physical recovery has slowed down considerably.  I am still moving the right direction, but there is also still a lot of pain each day, and not just in my leg.  I have a very sore back and ribs from the fall, and some internal pain, as well as feeling similar to having the flu (aches and pains randomly coming and going in various muscles and joints).  Also, the scar from my central line is still very sensitive.  As far as my leg, I had what I hope was my last silver-nitrate treatment yesterday.  The silver nitrate is used to "burn" away some of the granulation tissue, since it has been inflamed and tending to grow higher than the edges of the wound.  I believe things will be closed up in another two weeks or so, and then it's a waiting game to see if the scar will need surgical attention.  I am really trying to limit the amount of hydrocodone I take for pain, but it is hard right now.  Just the simple act of walking is painful enough to make me nauseous.  But after six weeks on crutches, I'm just thankful to be on my own two feet.

That brings me to the second half of my request.  When I was still in the hospital, there wasn't any room or time to be very upset about what was happening.  I was confused and a little angry and scared, but so much of the focus was on the moment to moment task of trying to recover.  As time has gone by though, and my body slowly rebuilds, I have been struggling emotionally.  I have tried not to make a big deal of it, but that Monday that I got very sick, I genuinely believed I was dying... and so did most of the medical professionals caring for me.  It was terrifying then, and now that my head is clear and I'm fully conscious, it's even more terrifying.  I don't have a solid answer, and never will, about what exactly caused the sepsis.  While my blood culture did reveal the same bacteria that was grown from each of the four abscesses they operated on, there was nothing about the day in question that should have sent things spiraling so out of control.  That's the scary part.  I keep saying it will never happen again... but how do I know?  If I don't know how or why it happened to start with, how do I prevent it in the future? 

I have actually been having nightmares and things that could almost be described as "flashbacks" about that day.  About laying there with my feet up in the air (I was tilted about 30-35 degrees, head down).  About the agony of the central line going in (no sedation, no local anesthetic because of being too unstable, and everything already really hurt), about the far more intense pain involved with opening up the abscess in ICU, where the lidocaine did nothing because the tissue was too inflamed.  About laying on the CT table and feeling sheer terror as my lungs felt like a hose was letting water fill them, and about the exhaustion that I felt by morning after struggling so hard to just breathe, for so long. 

About the looks on the faces of those I loved.  Especially about that.

So if you could pray that peace would replace the fear and that good memories would replace the bad, and if you could pray for continued healing and the restoration of sound health, I would be very, very thankful.

Thank you everyone.  May you have a very blessed and beautiful Christmas!