Have You Ever Seen a Llama, Eating Their Pajamas?

While the picture is fuzzy so it makes it hard to see the actual break in the bones, check out the reduction in swelling in only 3 weeks!! I'd say that's some pretty fab progress!

Pre-accident, we had a nightly routine that was so important to our children, we could get them to obey simply by threatening to take away "tuck-in privileges." It included the norms: pj's on, teeth brushed, books read. And then all four of us would pile onto Cora's bed. We'd rotate story-telling duties, discuss our favorite part of our day and then all sing a bed-time song before a volley of hugs and kisses. I realize it sounds cheesy enough to wind up smack in the middle of the next Lifetime movie, but I know I share my entire family's sentiment when I say it was often the very best part of our day.

This week will mark 12 weeks since Mark's accident.  It will also mark 12 weeks since we've shared a family tuck in. In between hospital stays, when Mark was confined to a chair in the living room, I encouraged our girls to move the nightly ritual to him. They weren't having it. Sure they would shower him with hugs before they retired to their rooms to pretend to sleep, but family tuck in did not take place in the living room. Period. Enough about their lives had been changed, that was something they would not budge on.

Each night I would gather the girls in Cora's bed & try to play the roll of both parents. It was an act I had been perfecting over the last 3 months, but despising a little more each day. Mark cooks the bacon, not me. Mark rolls the trash out to the end of the driveway, not me. Mark tickles the girls while wrestling with them on the floor, not me. I'm capable of doing all of those things, but that has never been my role in our family or in our marriage. I'm not cut out to play the part of two.

So last night, when Mark slowly crutched his way into Cora's room to join us, I felt whole for the first time in weeks. The girls fought over who would tell the story. They fought over who would sit where. Then they fought over who got to pick the song. I didn't care. I snuggled up next to them, closed my eyes and felt normal.

Normal. We're getting there. The skin from his skin graft is healing and starting to pink up and look normal. Despite a 30 pound weight loss, Mark's appetite is returning to normal. The inflammatory indicators (used to measure the active infection in his body) are near normal. We are finally on a normal healing track.

But he has a long way to go. A really long way.

It's hard to remember that and keep that perspective until I see how much is still not normal. He is sick. Really sick. Some days are better than others, but for the most part his body is rejecting all of the drugs and he feels almost constant nausea. It's frustrating because the very thing helping him is also hurting him. He was on Zofran and they've switched him to Phenergan. That is providing some relief.

He still has tentacles (aka. a PICC line) and will have it for an extra week because his blood work is not yet normal (we've seen HUGE improvements though!!). Once he's completed his IV antibiotics they will switch him to oral antibiotics for 2-3 months. It is only after he's completed that round of drugs that we'll actually learn if they killed the infection, or just suppressed it. If the infection comes roaring back after he stops the antibiotics, they will perform surgery #5 and remove all of the metal from his leg. His surgeon will not release him to return to light-duty until after this process, so he has another 2-3 months at home.

While he has become much more mobile (although the punk is defying doctor's orders by leaving his wheelchair as much as he does!), he is still supposed to be wheelchair bound. He was fitted for a foot boot/brace that holds his foot flat since he currently can't and provides some great support, although it causes some additional swelling in the upper leg so he can't keep it on for extended periods of time. We will get new X-rays taken in one week and depending on how the bone is healing, he might be able to start physical therapy after the 1st of the year. The X-rays from 3 weeks ago did not show any significant bone healing, but did show some INCREDIBLE reduction in swelling (that's the image from above). The infection brought the bone healing to a virtual stand-still. His surgeon said it's basically like he just broke his leg last week in terms of healing! But now that they've got the infection under control, the hope is these next X-rays show some great improvement.

With the infection no longer top priority, there are two main areas of concern. The first is the bone graft. When synthetic material is grafted in place of bone, bone typically grows around the graft and forms solid, new bone. The infection stopped that from happening, so he still has the synthetic material acting as bone in the area right below his knee. Because of this, he still can't put pressure on his leg because it would crush the graft and we'd be back to square one. Again, the hope is the new X-rays will show huge improvements in this area.

The second, and most vital concern at this point is the nerve damage. Mark has little to no feeling from right below his knee all the way down to the top of the toes. He still is unable to lift his foot or even move his toes in an upward motion. When the Perineal nerve was crushed in the accident and then subsequently from the compartment syndrome, it's possible it caused irreversible damage. While we are very hopeful and Mark is bound and determined to defeat the odds, at his last appointment the surgeon said the chance of him regaining full function was only 20%. He also said Mark was looking at an additional year before we would even know the full extent of the damage. A full year before we would even know what the new normal looks like.

So for now I'll take the little bits of normal as they come and be grateful for an off-key version of "Down by the Bay" belted out during family tuck-in from the comfort of Cora's bed.