The graft and recovery

19 August So, it's around 3pm and I finally can sit to write to all of you who have been so kind calling, messaging or being there with us.  I'm writing in English so that I don't have to do this twice.  I'm really tired and overwhelmed.  I had not anticipated my mother being so incapacitated and it's just a lot to take.  

The anesthesiologists were wonderful, and he doctor in charge was amazing with Sela.  As he was also teaching, he would let us be present when he would explain the anesthesia procedure to the students hovering around.  They did a nerve block on two sides of her upper thigh to cover the left side of the foot and the place where the tissue was removed on the right side.  They did not give her an epidural, but she was heavily sedated before they took her in.  When she came to, about an hour and a half later she was hungry, so we ordered her some food.  The food at the hospital, by the way, is very good.  One can order at only $5 a service and they include a drink and dessert and plenty of food.  She started having very bad pain in the afternoon and her blood pressure was quite elevated so the doctors decided to let her spend the night.  She was given morphine when the heavy pain killers did not help her and, she slept for a couple of hours.  Florence insisted on taking her back to Charlotte, but I put my foot down, how could I put her in a car like that.  So Florence left back to Charlotte and I stayed with Sela in her room.  It was a terrible night.  She was in such terrible pain that more morphine was given to her and more painkillers.  We hardly slept a wink. 

In the morning, she seemed a bit more settled and we removed the boot to give her a rest.  It might have been that the boot was on too tight, for she felt some relief and the pain was more manageable with just the pain killers.  We rode back with Roberto who arrived from Greenville, after nurses gave Sela another Oxycodone.  She was settled comfortably in R's car with pillows and blankets etc...  The trip was uneventful except for a few wrong turns which took us circumnavigating the Charlotte area, and Melissa was waiting for us.  Up she went with effort, for she cannot put weight on that foot -even if wearing one of those boots that look like they belong to Herman Monster.  She's just terrified and grabbing everything and everyone like an octopus.  And, to move one leg, and then the other is amazingly slow.  Sela the sloth I called her.  Anyway... we got her up and I changed and washed her ( as there was some flooding on the way up) and when Anna and Michael came in to bring Otto back, Sela insisted on sitting in the living room in her scooter.

After dinner and some Oxycodone, and a lot of arguing back and forth, Roberto won and decided to sleep with her.  It took us a good 45 minutes or an hour to settle her in bed.  I had to re-dress the thigh were they took the skin off, and well... it was tough.  The foot we cannot touch, the surgeon put a sign on her bandage DO NOT REMOVE... so there it is.  I have to remove the boot when she's in bed or on the sofa.  At that point I was falling asleep on my feet, so I told Roberto NOT to let her go to the bathroom by herself of without the bloody boot.  And off to bed I went.