I have been leaving the blog updates to my beautiful and very capable daughter, but I actually didn't mean to go this long without letting you know how things are going from my perspective. Angie has been so happy to be home and her countenance has already brightened this house substantially. This makes me realize what an empty place our abode becomes without her presence.

She continues to struggle with two main obstacles to beginning  to feel better. One is she still is very nauseous and finds it difficult to keep down what she eats which also complicates her receiving proper doses of medications that could help reduce her nausea. The second is the extreme pain she is in. This originates mainly from the compression fracture in her T8 vertebra which we have known about since her CT scans she had a couple of weeks ago. She should be receiving treatment today that will reduce this pain substantially and we are both very excited to have this done. The procedure is call kyphoplasty which is truly a modern miracle. They use two needles that from their appearance closely resemble the one used to obtain a bone marrow biopsy on her back on the 29th of June. These needles are inserted in both sides of the vertebra and a balloon is inflated to lift the compressed vertebra back into proper position and height.The a cavity is created where the balloon was and this cavity is then filled with a cement which cures before they let you off the table and dries harder than natural bone. They tell us the relief from pain is immediate and she should need almost zero recovery time. The vascular surgeon told us that if her pain is not substantially reduced their might be other vertebrae involved which would require another MRI to reveal, and additional Kyphoplaties to complete the repair. We will let you know the results and how Angie's back is healing as this process unfolds.

From a self serving point of view there is another reason it has been good to have Angie home. This has allowed me to provide care for her and the home she loves and it has been very therapeutic for me. It is difficult to see the love of your life suffer and not be able to do anything. It has been wonderful for me to be involved personally in her recovery process. With the severe back pain she has been suffering from it is very difficult for her to get out of bed without the assistance of someone to ease her into first a sitting position, and  then help her down to the floor. We have found, if she puts her arms around the persons neck and he supports her back with his hands, the job can be accomplished without much pain to her. I love doing this particular task for her because she always rewards me with a warm hug and a tender kiss, two of the real motivating factors for me in our almost 42 years of marriage ;)

Well they just took her in to radiology for the Kyphoplasty proceedure, I'll let you all know how it goes,


....more to come