Long overdue update

Before I even start the update...Thank you: Stoddard family, Gez and Tarik, Teme's class, teachers and room parents, the Starbeck and Tjaden families, Daigles, Tesfas, Grandpa Al, Tilahun and Nunu, Muellers, Jim, Lynn, Sue, Weimers and many others, I am so sorry if I forgot anyone, Your love and prayers has carried us through these last couple of days.

Friday night after Teme got back to the room Scott stayed at the hospital and I took the girls back to the hotel. It had been a long day for everyone. Thank you Gillette for having nice, well-equipped waiting rooms. Eight hours waiting in a waiting room went as well as it possibly could have gone.

About the time that I came back Saturday morning Teme started waking up agitated and in pain. We spent most of the day managing pain. By 9 or 10 in the evening he was himself for about 20 minutes. He sat up and ate some and talked coherently. It was nice to see after our day. Scott was afraid to leave Noelle and I at the hospital overnight but that is what we did. Teme did great. I woke up every two hours when the nurses came in and struggled to get back to sleep, but better me than him!

We had a great day on Sunday. Lots of visitors, both from Waterloo and from the Minneapolis area. Sunday late morning Scott headed back to Waterloo with the girls for a little school and work. Jake was one of our visitors and he and Teme shared a pizza and a nap. I also took Teme for a little walk in a wheelchair and we played a little Wii. Shortly after we returned to our room Teme's pain became uncomfortable again. We had an uncomfortable night and morning. Lots of drugs. He is comfortable now and just ate a little.

This morning the plastic surgery team removed Teme's bandage to change the dressing. He and I both did better than I expected. He was a little squirmy with the pain of removing bandages from fresh stitches but not too bad. And I saw no sense of emotional distress at this point, which was very relieving. The area that they grafted from his heel is larger than I thought and there are two places where they relieved the stress of some scaring and made "lightning bolts". I told him we will have to start calling him Flash Larson. Later the orthopedic doctor came by. I did not realize that they also grafted bone. The heel bone was attached with three screws. So to prevent any damage to the healing process Teme will be limited to a wheelchair for about 3 weeks. That should be fun, huh, Mr. Nass? Teme is very active but we thought it better to really limit him than leave any room for errors or accidents. He will transfer from a wheelchair to a walker just to keep him at a reasonable speed:) They were able to remove his epidural this morning, so one less tube. They said some patients actually do better on oral meds so we will see.

I cannot express how great Gillette has been. How privileged we feel that our son was able to have a surgery that has been done 7 times EVER. It required, beyond excellent surgeons, a "good" upper leg, "bad" knee and lower leg, and a "good" foot. Apparently not that common. In the long run this surgery will promote much fewer problems with his stump and therefore enhanced mobility. Thank you to those of you who recommended Gillette, Brionn and the Newmans. Thanks you most of all to our mighty saviour Whose plan is so much greater than ours. Who has this whole process in His hands.

Thank you specifically for those of you that prayed for Noelle. She was magnificent Thursday through Saturday. At the thought of going home without mom both girls became a little "fragile". Please continue to pray for Scott and the girls for the next couple of days. And continue to pray not only for Teme's healing but that he and I would have an opportunity to bond in a special way as we are alone for a few days. So far so good!

Sorry no pictures yet. The Tesfas were nice enough to bring me my camera but I did not have my computer cord in my bag as I usually do. So I will update some pictures sometime on Wednesday.