The Past Month--Mike's Surgery and Recovery

(from Sue's point of view)

One month ago today, Friday, September 11, Mike had surgery on his face to repair the injury caused by a softball hitting him on Thursday, August 27. Mike’s parents came Thursday evening, and Mike’s Dad and our home teachers, Trent & Mykel Hainer gave Mike a wonderful blessing. Mike was promised a “quick and complete recovery” depending on his faith. Mike looked and felt pretty good Friday morning.

Sept. 11

Mike, his parents, and I went to Harborview on Friday morning arriving there about 10:00 AM for surgery at noon. About 11:30 we decided to do a puzzle that was in the waiting room since it looked like it would be a while before we left that room.
Finally at 1:30 PM they called him to get ready, so he actually went to surgery about 2:30 PM. Mike’s parents and I went to get some lunch then went to a different surgery waiting room. At 3:20 PM I received a call from Nadine saying that her water had broken and that she was on her way to the hospital (about 900 miles away from the hospital I was in). Mike’s surgeon came to tell us that his surgery was completed and considered successful at 6:50 PM. Scott (Nadine’s husband) called at 7:15 to say their baby Braden Glenn Sundblom (see http://scottandnadine.blogspot.com/ I forgot how to put a link in a blog.) had been born about 25 minutes earlier at 7:51 PM Utah time…just as Mike’s surgery was completed. Mike was able to go to his hospital room a little after 8:00 PM which was the first time his parents and I were able to be with him since before his surgery. He had 3 incisions for his surgery—one under his eye, one outside his eye in the smile lines going onto his upper eyelid, and one inside his mouth from side to side between his gums and his cheeks. That way he won’t have noticeable scars. We stayed with him for a couple of hours and then went home.
Saturday morning I arrived at Harborview just after 9:00 AM and the doctors had just left. Mike was very worried as the doctors said he might have to go into surgery again if he couldn’t move his eye. They were concerned that one of the eye muscles might have been stapled or was attached in some way to the materials they had put in him during surgery so that he could not move it. An opthalmologist came in 3 hours later to determine if that was true. She used an instrument to open his eye, then asked me to hold it in place (thanks a lot!) while she used what looked like very pointy tweezers—she called them forceps—to move his eye around. His right eye was looking forward, but his left eye was being moved up and down, left and right by the ophthalmologist. It looked pretty strange. The good news was that she was convinced that his eye had mobility, so she would contact the plastic surgeons and tell them of her findings. We played the waiting game again. At Mike’s pre-surgery appointment, we were told he would be coming home the day after surgery about noon or so. Now it was close to 1:00 PM and we hadn’t heard from the plastic surgeons yet. Mike hadn’t eaten anything except some juice Friday night since Thursday night before surgery since they weren’t sure if he would require more surgery.
Mike’s parents came to the hospital at 2:30 and I left at 3:00 to go home and finish packing to catch my flight to Utah to see Nadine and her new baby. Here is the view from the hospital as I left. Mike received dinner at 5:00 PM and they took his IV out and told him he would not need additional surgery. Mike’s parents stayed with him for several hours then went back to our home to be with Hannah. They were back at Harborview Sunday morning to hopefully take Mike home soon. It turned out that Mike was discharged at 9:30 PM that night. He threw up as he got into his parents’ car—good thing he had asked for a bowl to take with him! They went home and hoped he would be able to heal better at home than in the hospital. Monday evening Mike called the community nurse at Harborview to tell them he was dehydrated and couldn’t eat or keep anything down if he could eat it. The nurse told him to call 911 and take an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital to be rehydrated. He was taken to Valley Medical Center and given 2 bags of IV fluids. They sent him home at 4:00 AM or some time around then (thanks to the Harris family for bringing Mike and his Dad home at that crazy hour).
Tuesday morning was Hannah’s first day of school (the Kent School District teachers had been on strike for 10 school days so school was starting Sept. 15 and not Aug. 31 as we had planned), and her Grandpa and not her Dad gave her the traditional back-to-school priesthood blessing (thanks, Grandpa) before they went to the hospital since Mike wasn’t feeling up to it. I didn’t learn about the emergency room visit until Tuesday morning when Mike’s mom called and let me know.
Miriam came from Pullman on Tuesday and Mike’s parents went home to Portland exhausted. It was so wonderful of them to be here to take care of Mike so that I could take care of Nadine with her first baby. I really appreciate their help.
Since Mike had been rehydrated Monday night/Tuesday morning, he was doing better. Miriam made a chart of his medications and wrote down what food he was able to eat. Mike called me to tell me he was so glad he was able to eat a potato and chicken. Miriam had texted me to tell me he had eaten half a small baked potato and the inside of 2 popcorn chicken. I guess that was a lot to him, but I don’t that was very much. On Friday, Mike had an appointment with the plastic surgery nurse to talk about his surgery healing. Miriam took him to the appointment. When he got there, they realized he was still very sick and from his symptoms Dr. Wheeler suspected Mike had clostridium difficile (C. diff), a bacterial infection. Mike had been tested for C diff at Valley, so they called to get the results. Valley said the tests had come back negative, but Dr. Wheeler kept looking at his symptoms and said he really felt like that test was wrong (apparently this test often gives a false negative), so they sent Mike to the ER again. This was the 4th time in an ER in 3 weeks! They gave him IV fluids and did all kinds of tests and decided to treat him for C diff even if he didn’t have it—it turns out he did. They sent him home with new prescriptions. The medicine to treat the C diff (Flagyl) is apparently very nasty, and he threw up the pill when he first took it. It was better going down when he put it in a spoon of yogurt. Miriam helped through the weekend and left Monday evening just before I got home from Utah. Mike was very worried and anxious throughout this time—both because he thought he might be going back to work that next week and also because that was the side effect of some of the medications he was taking. Miriam got out our family movies—including the super 8 films that we made in the mid 1980’s when we lived in Berkeley—to take his mind off of being ill. Over the next 2 weeks, Mike watched every family movie we have—hours and hours of movies! It did help him feel better. Miriam was very helpful! Thank you Miriam for all you did!
Mike is concerned with his eye not completely closing, but it keeps getting better. It is a slow process.
Last Wednesday, Mike had an appointment with the surgeon who performed his surgery, Dr. Joseph Gruss. He was pleased with the healing that has occurred. He approved Mike to go back to work gradually. He went to work for 4 hours on Thursday and Friday. He’ll work 4-hour days Monday-Wednesday of this week, then 5 days of 6-hour days, then back to full time.
Thank you for all of your love, help and prayers. I don’t know what we would have done without our family and friends.

Sept. 23

Sept. 28 With Katy on Oct. 2 October 7