Today begins the road to recovery. Kristi is very sore, tired, and medicated. She’s still quite “out of it”. She did manage to get out of bed and walked 2 doors down the hallway. Today she just focused on rest and recovery. We had some issues today with pain management that I sum up in our daily update e-mail…
bkrogalske@sbcglobal.net
01/27/2007 11:42 PM
Kristi Update #4: 1-27-07
Hello again,
Today Kristi made great progress. She actually got out of bed and walked twice today…about 20 feet each time. The doctor is very pleased with her progress. Tomorrow she might even get the tube out of her nose…that’s the worst one. She has a tube that runs through her nose down to her stomach. It is very uncomfortable. She is still in an incredible amount of pain. As long as I keep on the drugs she tolerates it. We had one rough spot today where her drugs ran out and we had 3 different alarms going off at the same time for about an hour - on and off. She was in an indescribable amount of pain. But they had a “high maintenance” patient down the hall that wasn’t cooperating so the nurses couldn’t get to Kristi right away. That was the first time (and only) where she got a little frustrated and down. She had to cover her head with her pillow to drown out the alarms. Of course, she apologized later. Tomorrow’s goal: walk 4 times.
It took me until about 5:00 PM to read through all of the e-mails everyone sent. I would read them as she slowly dozed in and out of sleep…so some I had to read 2 or 3 times because she would fall asleep half way through. She really appreciated all the kind words. All of the students in Nathan’s kindergarten class made her ‘get well soon’ cards. She really enjoyed looking at all of those. Reading the e-mails to her was probably the bright spot of the day. Her mom also spent most of the day with us helping with the ice chips and morphine. Aunt Judy is coming again at midnight to stay the night.
For those that showed up and couldn’t see her I apologize. The nurses really didn’t encourage visitors after about 3:00. Kristi was just whipped and they wanted her to rest. The nursing staff at Zeeland Hospital is just wonderful…very protective. I imagine tomorrow will still be a tough day for Kristi, so if you planned on visiting and have to come tomorrow, don’t be surprised if she can’t talk or is even sleeping (if you can wait until Monday or Tuesday that would be great). She loves seeing everyone but she gets tired very easy.
So many people replied to her ‘Hugs’ e-mail I thought I would attach it again because I’ve added many people to the distribution. Kristi sent this out the night (well, early morning) before her surgery – 12:58AM. In typical Kristi fashion, she was concerned for everyone else. So here it is again…
Hello all, it’s me, Kristi. The house is quiet and dark and so peaceful. I can hear Brian snoring away upstairs which is music to my ears! I am so happy to say I saw peace in him tonight as he drifted into sleep. I wish I could individually e-mail all of you. This is hard for me to do as a group thing because so many of you have send individual e-mails and calls and please know they are appreciated and I wish I could talk to you all. I’m understanding my limitations and have figured out when to say I can’t do anymore when which is not an easy thing. I have missed a few visits with people because of the joy of colon cleansing which takes it out of me (literally!). One of the people I missed was Don Bronkema but Brian shared his words with me and he is now one of my many guardian angels. I didn’t realize that Don has fought cancer and one it many times. He explained the peace to Brian that he felt that only the person dealing with this can understand. It is so amazing. The devil does come in and try to take that but you just claim God as your strength and you’re back in the peace again. That’s exactly where I am at. I have only had a few short moments of fear which as I uttered the words “God don’t leave me” I had a huge peace and even drifted off to sleep. Unexplainable. My hope is that some day I can share that with someone else going through what I am. I have already told one friend, but I’ll tell you all. Put on your sun glasses because God is going to shine brightly through me! Thank you for all the God stories you have shared. This is an incredible journey. I know I have a difficult journey ahead but with God by my side what can I fear? I have a lot of time on my hands lately and find myself praying for my friends and family that you will feel my peace. Please keep everyone in your prayers – all family and friends – we all need each other. Thank you so much, I can’t even begin to say thank you enough. The prayers, meals, offers for everything under the sun is so great. You know, I wasn’t really living until now. I was gliding through life. Look out world cuz here I come!!!
With much love,
Kristi
That gives me goose bumps. Thanks again for showering us with prayers and support (the prayer pager just went off again – and it’s 11:30!). The support has been overwhelming. God Bless!
Brian
