Yesterday was a whirlwind of packing up, getting discharged from the hospital, unloading, and setting everything back up at our VRBO to settle in for the next two weeks. After getting all the information on which drugs to take when from the doctors and giving some thank you gifts to our nurses, Lindsey got to finally take out the dreaded IV and change out of her hospital gown.

We arrived home to see that her mom had done a lot of work that morning making the house look nice, arranging all the gifts and flowers you all have sent in the living area for Lindsey! It was a nice surprise to walk in to. All of the activity and the bumpy drive back took a lot out of Lindsey, and she spent most of the evening in and out of sleep surrounded by her humidifier and ice wrap.

I was wrong about one thing yesterday – day 3 might be the peak of pain, but day 5 is supposed to be the peak of swelling, and you can definitely see that today. Last night her cheeks puffed up a lot, and she had more problems with breathing and congestion. From 3 til 6 this morning we sat in the living room with Lindsey breathing over the humidifier. Any time she tried to recline at all she would feel like she was choking. After the combination of saline spray, Klonopin, and Sudafed finally kicked in, we were both able to get a little bit of rest, and even “slept in” until 10.

This morning I’ve seen the greatest improvement in the shortest time since her surgery. After how rough last night was for her, she also had a difficult morning, again spent breathing over the humidifier after taking a full smorgasbord of medicine. When the act of swallowing itself is both mentally and physically taxing, every pill, especially those almost the size of a grape, is exhausting to take. Thanks to some of her friends in her ICR (idiopathic condylar resorption) group, she learned the secret of mixing ground up pills with a heaping squeeze of chocolate syrup to mask the taste. After sitting up for a while and getting the first round of a steroid to reduce swelling, her hunger from the last 4 days finally caught up to her. In the last 5 hours, she has eaten nutrition shakes, chicken bone broth, and best of all, a homemade lentil soup from her mom, pureed smooth.

As I’m writing this, she’s sitting at the kitchen table with an at-home physical therapist we were able to connect with last minute to continue working on her thumb. For those who don’t know, she broke her thumb while skiing over Christmas in the most unfortunate way that ended up requiring surgery. Being down to one hand definitely did not ease her time in the hospital trying to handle the devices all around her bed. She doesn’t want to lose any mobility in that hand, so she did the work in advance to find a PT that could work with her while we are here.

We’re doing our best today to work down her congestion, using Q-tips and warm water to clear out her nose and taking Sudafed as often as possible. We’re hoping to open up that middle of the night breathing she has been struggling with to start to get better rest. Because she’s been so active today, I have the feeling she will be able to sleep more soundly if she isn’t dealing with those problems.

One thing we noticed shortly after surgery is that it seems that she has a deviated septum. We noticed that her nose looked a little crooked, but there has been so much swelling it is hard to say whether any feature on her face will be the same next week. Because of this, she isn’t too worried about it yet, but Dr Sullivan said that he did put a septal suture tying it to the bone that may have been deflected when the anesthesiologist removed the breathing tube. For now, we are just going to wait and see how it looks as the swelling goes down, and will talk with him about it when we meet on Friday.

She’s still having more irregular heartbeats than normal, and reduced hearing in her left ear. If you’re looking for specific things to pray for all of the above are our biggest pain points right now. Thank you all for continuing to follow her recovery and commenting, its been encouraging for all of us.