Carrie Continues to Shine

[Shannon here again]  Carrie is doing great!!!  This is just day two, and she’s sitting up, cracking a joke or two, thanking her nurses and friends, and asking for what she needs. Oh, and drinking cool clear liquids through a straw.

There is a vast improvement from one day to the next.  The naso-gastric tube was removed this morning (the tube was left there after surgery to drain blood from the stomach – blood that inevitably gets to the stomach when the mouth is worked on surgically).

The obturator, inserted during the surgery, is in place.  Carrie has teeth where there aren’t any.  If you didn’t know any better and met Carrie in the street, you’d wonder what the fuss was about.

But to graphically depict what the obturator is doing, here is a photo of it.  As you can see, it replaces the teeth removed yesterday, as well as provides a cover to the part of her palate that was removed.

Obturator

Carrie is in a lot of pain, managed by medication; she’s swollen in her mouth and cheek area on the left side; and the logistics of easing pain, expelling mucous, and relearning how to eat can prove to be tiring and humorous challenges. Oh, and she’s still battling hot flashes (drat!  She was hoping for a reprieve…)  But she is doing great.  We friends and family see improvements by the hour.

She is graduating from a clear liquid diet to a “broken jaw diet” – which is blended food.

Carrie will be transferred to a regular hospital room tonight (she has been in a “step-down” unit so far), and the plan is getting her out of bed and walking without all the hindrances of being attached to about a dozen tubes and wires.  Once she accomplishes this feat and proves she can eat her blended diet, she can come home.  Estimated date for homecoming:  Tomorrow evening, likely.

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