It has been 11 days since my husband's accident with a chop saw which nearly cut off much of his hand and thumb.  Not for the faint hearted but here is a quick peak we took when they removed his cast to redress the wound.  You can see how much he nearly lost.  We are very thankful to all the staff who helped John to save his hand.

Everyday he is a little more awake than the day before, but his hand is now so sore and swollen he is struggling to wear the splint to immobilise his hand.  I have done all I can to make it more comfortable.  Today we woke to find his bandage soaked with gunk, so we will need to see the Dr in the morning to make sure it is ok.  I redressed it for him, but I think it needs a professional opinion.  We knew the road to recovery would be hard, but  I guess I never thought it would be this hard.  He is very frustrated at how little he can do and I am so tried from looking after all the children.  I am struggling to see the wood for the trees at the moment.  I am still feeling rough from my stint in hospital last month with Omental Infaract, and I am now having to not only pick up my mummy jobs but all the daddy jobs too.  We are not sleeping so last night we put on a Jesus Culture CD and fell asleep listening to it.  I actually slept until 5am which was a miracle these days.  In fact we have been trying to soak in worship music whenever we can. 

God is on his throne and we know he uses all situations for good, but we are struggling.    This was on facebook today and it did sum up a bit of how I am feeling:

Chain saw massacre

Ok so my blog recently seems to be more about my health than my life as a worshipper, but unfortunately my family has been hit hard by another hospital stay.  This time it is not me - but my husband.  I entitled this post a chain saw massacre, but in reality it was a chop saw serious incident.  My poor husband on Sunday managed to accidentally cut his hand into 2 pieces with a chop saw.  It has to be the single most traumatic experience in my life.  I heard my husband scream from the garden and I was 1st on the scene.  And blood was everywhere.  I grabbed the nearest tea towel and applied as much pressure as I could to his wrist and hand.  All 4 of my children were screaming so I gave them all tasks to do - the eldest phoned the ambulance, the 2nd child ran to find a neighbour, the next child ran and got my shoes and handbag (so I could go with John) and the youngest kept me in a supply of clean tea towels.  Our family in shock worked like a well oiled machine.

I stood holding John's arm up for an eternity waiting for the ambulance to arrive.  It was the longest time ever and John was fazing in and out and I was trying to keep him talking too.

I had been in bed when the accident happened as I was not only recovering from my Omental Infarction, but also had flu and a raging temperature.  By the time we got the the hospital I felt so ill and it was so hard to see John writhing in absolute agony while they saw to him.

They couldn't operate straight away as someone else came in with a life threatening head injury so John had to wait.... and wait (all the while his arm was leaking blood).  By the time the theatre was free the surgeon was so tired that he decided to clean John's hand under a local anaesthetic and quartorize the leaking veins - strapping his hand together so that John would wait until the morning when the specialised hand team were in.  The surgeon then did all the minor plastics surgeries through the night to make space for John in the theatre the next morning. 

Waiting for John to come back from surgery was agonising.  He was gone 6 hours and each hour felt like a day.  There was a chance he would lose the thumb part of his left hand, but when he came back onto the ward I saw his pink thumb popping out of the top of his plaster cast.

They have managed to save his thumb, but they think it might not function properly again.  He has also severed all the nerves over the top of his hand so he will not have any feeling there.

After 4 days in hospital I picked him up and brought him home with a shed load of medicines.  He is sleeping about 23 hours a day at the moment but he has only been home 2 days.

Today we have to go back to the hospital for a dressing change.  We will finally get to see how they have fixed his hand.  I am sure it will look like Frankenstein for a while - but I am so pleased that they have managed to put him back together.  They had to piece together bones, tendons and muscle so it is a miracle he still has all this digits.

Now we have to walk the path to recovery...

Poorly Poorly

I have been so poorly recently I have not been able to blog.  I have been feeing rough for months and in September I visited my Dr with a horrific headache and loss of strenth on one side.  It looked like I was having a stroke and the Dr called me an ambulance.  After many tests and an MRI they ruled out all sinister conditions and diagnosed me with a terrible Migraine.   After several days in hospital, then 4 more weeks at home with severe pain it eventually settled and I had my life back (although at a slower pace). 

I still felt drained and pushed on but began to have sharp pains in my tummy.  I put the pain down to taking anti inflammatory tablets for my head ache.  I have a history of stomach ulcers so I often get an upset tummy when I take them.  These pains persisted for a month and I was glugging the Gaviscon from the bottle.  However one day when I was sorting out some papers, I got a stitch in my tummy.  I thought it was odd as I had not been running and tried to ignore it through the afternoon.  By the next morning it was a painful stitch and I made an emergency appointment at the Drs.  She was very worried as the pain was over my liver and wanted to send me to hosital.  I did not want to go back into hospital again so she agreed to do blood tests as long as I came back 1st thing:  I never made it back.  By that evening I was in agony, I sat still all night and took loads of pain killers but when I tried to stand I collapsed with pain and my lovely husband called the ambulance for me. 

The next few days were a blur while they dosed me up and tried to find out what was wrong.  They ruled out pancritis (which I have had before) and lots of other nasties.  After 3 days of me screaming and no clue as to what was wrong with me they sent me for a CT Scan.  The diagnosis: Omental Infarct.  I had never heard of it, you have probably never heard of it - and to my surprise most of the Drs had never heard of it either.  In fact I am the first person in the hospital in Oxford to have ever had it.  Apparently it is extremely rare.  Whenever I they visited they seemed to ask me more questions than I asked to them.   Basically it means that part of the apron or bag of tissue that holds my intestines together had lost it's blood supply and died. Yep dead tissue inside me.  A boy did it hurt.  I had morphine via a pump and everything else they could throw at me and it was still excruciating.  The accute symptoms lasted 10 days, the last 5 of which I would keep nothing down including water.  I was poorly.

Now I have been home 3 weeks and I still have pain and feel exhausted.  Whilst progress has been slow there has been some progress.  They did a biopsy this week to see whether I have the bug H Pylori which caused stomach ulcers and reflux.  So I am awaiting those now.

Just as I had begun to feel a bit better and even managed to get out of the house, I have now been hit by a horrible flue bug.  I am sat in my bed with PJ's, dressing gown, 3 duvets and a hat and I am still freezing.  My whole body aches, My head is pounding and my throat feels like I have razor blades shoved down it.  I am struggling to swallow my own saliva.  My tummy is still sore too and I feel like death. 

I am frustrated, I am fed up, I am poorly and feel like I need a break now.  I have been questioning why some people are as fit as a fiddle, and others, like me, are in and out of hospital all the time?  It seems the distribution of illness is not fairly shared out.

I have felt low and sorry for myslef, but some days I am grateful that being ill has forced me to stop and appreciate the important things in life.  I am often too busy to stop and over the past few months I have been forced to stop and spend time with my children.  Whilst we have not been out together, I know that they have appreciated my being at home to talk to.

Whilst I can see some benefits I am totally ready to move onto to health now.  I am praying for a speedy recovery - especially as Christmas is only 10 days away.