This is CJ, Cathi's 4th (and best) daughter. If you're on Facebook, you most likely already know what's been going on here, but if you haven't heard, read on...

On Friday evening of last week, Mom was in her bedroom with Tim (the youngest-he's 12) and fell by her bed. It was immediately apparent that something was wrong and that she couldn't be moved. She was in a considerable amount of pain and could not move her leg at all. My siblings called EMS right away (Dad was in Las Vegas on business!) and she was driven to our base hospital in the ambulance. The ER doctors told us that the femur in her right leg (her GOOD leg) was badly broken with a spiral fracture. They said surgery would be scheduled sometime for that night or the next morning. Dad was, thankfully, able to get an emergency flight out of Vegas and landed in San Antonio around 2am Saturday morning.

It ended up that she was not able to have surgery until Monday night. This was her 5th leg surgery, and her surgeon said that the it went very well. They were able to completely brace the bone with steel plates and bone grafts so that the break can heal properly.

Today (Wednesday), she is still in a lot of pain. The pain meds are helping somewhat, but she's still dealing with moderate to severe pain. Her blood counts today have been low, so they are going to give her 2 units of blood this evening to help those numbers climb back up. The physical therapist has been in her room a couple of times already and has helped her with some leg exercises that she can do from bed.

As of right now, her doctor is saying that he will release her on either Friday or Monday. From there, she will be admitted directly into an inpatient rehab center, where she will stay for at least 7 days. She will be not be allowed to walk for at least 6 weeks after that, so we are reworking our family's summer plans to make sure that she can take all the time she needs to recover.

Our church family has been taking excellent care of all of us during all of this. We've been getting enormous meals (enough to feed all 22 of us!), lots of snacks for the kids, and people have been taking turns with the kids to allow us adults to spend time at the hospital. Thank you so much!

Our family would greatly appreciate your prayers for Mom and for us. Here are some specific things for which you can pray:

• Pray for quick, complete healing for Mom's leg. Pray that she regains her strength and is able to put all of energy into rehab.
• Pray for Dad, who is the best you could ever have. He is spending very long hours at the hospital, right beside Mom, and he is beginning to look very tired. Pray for stamina and patience for him as he waits with Mom and takes care of her.
• Pray for the rest of us while we're here at home, trying to juggle normal life with visits to the hospital, childcare, etc.
  

Thank you for your prayers. We will update you on what happens next.

For the WarRusSlaWel Fam,

Sis

Labels: Health