Some details on her health and recovery progress from a fall she had in March of 2023.
Latest entries are at the top of this page.
2/29/2024, 11:59 pm: Phyllis had dental surgery on the eighth of this month (Feb. 2024). This time it was prepare her gums for the braces which are to be put on her teeth next. It’s been about 3 weeks from that surgery and she’s recovered from it nicely; and, the gum work that was done seems to be going fine. Then in about a month we’ll see the orthdontist about putting on braces to get her teeth better straightened from her fall. Thanks for prayers!
12/19/2023, 8:15 pm: It’s been a while so let’s catch up some. Phyllis no longers gets minor adjustments to her dental appliances because her teeth and “appliances” are working well. As of today she has gained back her full weight before her fall and surgery…plus two pounds. We’re very pleased about that. We have not rushed into getting some gum grafts because we’re letting everything heal till past the New Year or so. Then we’ll look into a gum graph and that will be followed by some sort of braces, like invisiline. Then a year after that, she’ll be aethetically as good as new…even though she pretty much now feels as good as new. Thanks for your many prayers!
10/10/2023, 8:45 pm: Phyllis continues to progress in her healing. She is still from time to time having minor adjustments to her dental appliances and in the near future she may have some work done on a tooth that was broken in the fall. It will likely be caped and another will likely have a root canal. We are consulting with a couple of dental places about orthdontal work and perhaps some work on part of her gums. That’s going to take some time for everything to heal up better in her mouth from the trauma that still remains. A good news item: Phyllis recently noticed she had gained 4 pounds, so that’s one of the main areas we hoped to have some goodnews! To God be the glory.
9/13/2023, 4:45 pm: It’s been 3 weeks since Phyllis had her procedure. She seems to be adjusting to it well, chewing and eating pretty well; and, we went back last week to the prosthodontist for a minor adjustment. There’s probably more slight adjustments to come, as a matter of fact she’s scheduled for another on Monday of this coming week.
Today we saw the orthodontist, which is the next procedure in line for Phyllis. After a look over he said that first Phyllis needs to see specialist to analyze the state of her gums before they start orthodontal work. Assuming that goes okay with that, he would start her on the equivalence of what is called visiline, that is, see through plastic braces to get her teeth in front to line up together a little better. I gulped a little when I found out the procedure, which lasts for about 1 year costs $6,720. We’ll look at other orthodontists who may work with our discount dental agent. All that to come after a while, because she needs time for things to continue to settle in before embarking on the new orthdontic regimen.
8/22/2023, 1:00 pm: As scheduled, Phyllis did have her procedure done today and the temporary teeth are out and the permanent teeth are in.
According to Phyllis it feels so much better, and from what I see, it also looks a lot better. She is almost as good as new. That is, she’ll probably have some orthdontry work to line up her front teeth and bite better, and to make it slightly more pleasing aesthetically. She now does have a full mouth of teeth that meet properly. : )
So, pretty soon over the next week or two she’ll be eating more solid foods and getting more back to normal. If there are problems, she’ll go back to see the prosthodontist to get an adjustment. We praise God for the results! Join with us in singing His praises for the substantial healing and progress made. We think the most difficult things are behind us and we like what we see…the light at the end of the tunnel is visible. Thank you again for your prayers!
8/9/2023, 11:25 pm: Phyllis had a second tweak of her temporary dental appliances this afternoon and she is doing much better! It seems her teeth are meshing better and her mouth is less sore. As I mentioned in my last note below, she’s back to full speed again, depression long gone, and pain greatly reduced. So this is a very nice improvement this week for her and we’re looking forward to the 22nd when the permanent dental stuff goes in. Blessings on you all!
8/7/2023, 4:30 pm: It’s been about two weeks since the last major procedure, and last week we went in to see if the doctor could tweak things a bit. He was able to do so and yet there is more improvement needed; he assured us that we would be pleased with the final permanent caps, bridges, and adjustments to come.
So things are better now and hopefully when we go for the “permanent” solution on August 22nd and perhaps a follow-up tweaking or two, she’ll have a great result and be able to eat very well. Phyllis is doing very well, her depression is gone and she’s at full speed again. Thanks for praying!
7/25/2023, 7:30 pm: We are home now; the 4 1/2 hour prosthodontal procedure was completed earlier today. Though groggy in recovery and in coming home, she napped this afternoon and feels better. She had a liquid protein drink this afternoon and some (soft) pasta this evening.
What we hoped for and prayed for did not fully come about…at least not yet. That is, our hope and prayer was that her teeth would meet evenly between the uppers and lowers on both sides of her mouth after this procedure. However, it seems that instead the unevenness problem with the right side of her upper and lower teeth seems to have shifted to the unevenness on the left side of her upper and lower teeth. So, at this initial stage of gauging the procedure’s success, it seems to have not gone as well as we hoped.
The doctor explained that there is some more tweaking to be done with these temporary emplacements and that can be done in the next days or weeks (we’ll have to set up an appointment for that); but, that in working on her temporary solutions for today, this sort of trial and error approach will eventually pave the way for getting to a better final solution in about a month.
Thus for now, we leave ourselves in God’s hands with the confidence that whatever happens we will not be separated from His love for us and hold on to the hope of further healing and progress. Thanks for your prayers!
7/23/2023, 11:40 pm: We are only about 32 hours away from Phyllis prosthodontal procedure. I am now calling it a procedure instead of surgery (as I did below), though she’ll be under anesthesia for about 4 hours.
I understand the time spent doing the procedure will be to address her teeth alignment, mostly so the upper left side and the upper right side of her teeth meets evenly with the corresponding lower sides of her teeth. Right now they do not meet evenly. The anesthesia is so she can tolerate the time they work in her mouth—something not so easy to tolerate for a long time when you’re fully awake.
Please pray with us that God woud grant Phyllis a successful procedure that would work well and then continue to do so for two to four weeks following this. That time is used to decide if the temporary measures they take now can be made then permanent in a follow-up procedure. Our hope and trust is in Him. Thanks for joining with us in prayer!
7/14/2023, 4:40 pm: Phyllis continues to improve in many ways. She has recovered from depression and is back to doing her daily routines: cooking, washing and keeping her two “boys” in line. She looks forward to the upcoming surgery and the hope the prosthodontic surgery will improve her teeth alignment. That alignment might allow her (and we hope it does) to chew more normally and thus increase her diet from merely liquid and a soft diet to a wider range of meals.
7/5/2023, 5:15pm: After talking to Medicare they will not cover the costs of Phyllis’ prosthodontist repair…and since they won’t, neither will our other supplemental insurance. So, that was a little disappointing, but not completely unexpected. Our plan is to borrow on our home equity—thankful costs are not nearly so high as they could have been, so we’re moving ahead.
Phyllis did have the impressions made last week of her present teeth positions that will be used for her future reconstruction.
Her procedure for partial mouth reconstruction is scheduled for Tuesday, July 25th beginning at 8:00 am (MST). Phyllis also talked with her dentist last week and it is likely after the reconstruction (fixing the bite problem), she’ll still need to have braces of some kind to get everything lined up properly. We’ll cross that bridge with God’s grace when we get there. Thanks for praying! No weight gain in the last 10 days.
6/26/2023, 4:20 pm: I have some good news. We did see the prosthodontist last Thursday and he thinks he can fix up Phyllis’ teeth pretty well. He seemed like a very nice guy (which helps) and the price he quoted was less than 1/3 the cost I expected to hear. The reduction in cost was due in part to the fact not all of her teeth needs fixing (a full mouth reconstruction), and instead she needs only a partial reconstruction.
By the way, we still (reasonably) hope our insurance will cover this and we’ll know pretty soon about that. But whatever comes, God has and will take care of us. The more important issue is that through these procedures Phyllis can regain full normal functional eating and for that we ask your prayers!
This Thursday she’ll have impressions of her teeth made at their office and then a very soon thereafter she’ll have a 4 hour procedure to put in place temporary crowns and bridges. After times goes by if they seem to work efficiently, they’ll replace the temporary ones with permanent ones. Hopefully, this whole series will take between a month and six weeks.
Also, Phyllis has regained 5 of the 15 pounds she needs to get back to her original weight.
6/17/2023, 3:00 pm: Ahead, this coming week we see the prosthodontist on Thursday. That will be an important meeting, because since the orthdontist couldn’t help us now, this might be an option that is still open. We’ll trust the Lord and see.
Some good news: Phyllis seems to have come out of her depression and is feeling more herself. She’s up and about doing house chores and feels more like eating. This may be a result of the medicine the doctor recommended taking affect and thus an answered prayer, or just an answered prayer. She saw her personal doctor twice over the last two weeks and she’s gained about 2 pounds and every pound gained is good.
So to summarize her situation now: 1) no more constant pain from the surgery—only infrequent pain if her jaw is bumped; 2) she’s not taking any pain meds and hasn’t for a good while; 3) she’s very ambulatory and is doing the household chores again…probably a by-product from her relieved depression; 4) she still has a headache everyday and we’re not sure why, but this could be left over from the concussion; 5) we are still waiting to see what next steps we can take to realign her teeth so she can eat solids more easily. This may take a while to figure out and may take a long while to fix once we find a direction. We’ll see what the Lord has in store for us. Thanks for your prayers!
6/13/2023, 9:15 pm: Yesterday we met with an orthodontist as a part of our exploration of the four options I mentioned (just below) for Phyllis’ recovery. The bottom line is that he thinks we need to first meet with the prosthodontist because before he could work on moving teeth around, he thought it best for her to have her teeth meshing correctly—meeting flush vertically—and that’s more of the work of the prosthodonist. We have the latter scheduled for a meeting next week.
Once piece of good news: Phyllis has for several days seemed to have come out of her depression and is feeling much better. That’s answered prayer! That’s means she’s eating more enthusiastically and roughly in a week she has gained about 2 pounds…just 13 more to go to get back to normality.
6/6/2023, 8:07 pm: This week, so far, we’ve met with our family doctor on Monday about Phyllis’ lack of appetite and the fact that just the thought of eating makes her nauseous; and today, Tuesday, we also met with a dental surgeon about where to go from where she now is.
First, our family physician recommended a stronger anti-nausea medicine that also could help with the depression. So the main thing there is it will take about a month for the anti-nausea medicine to kick in with affects on the depression, and that depression maybe is causing the lack of appetite and nausea.
Second, we met the surgeon today at 3:30 pm. He looked over Phyllis’ cat-scan and came up with four possibilities for her to consider:
Option 1.) Go back to original surgeon and say his surgery didn’t do enough and have him consider repairing the left side of the jaw, to better line the teeth. Pro: insurance might cover it. Con: she’d be back at square one with a new surgery and six weeks of wire shut jaws again waiting for it to heal, meanwhile she’d be on a liquid diet for another two months. She’d probably need braces or something like that after the surgery to straighten the teeth and probably some caps to repair broken teeth.
Option 2) See a prosthodontist to have him work on a series of tooth lengthening caps on one side of her mouth and shortening on the other so that both sides of her jaw meets more evenly.
Pro: the shortest way back to “normalcy”…it would take about a month to go through the process, give or take.
Con: very expensive like $40,000 or $50,000 and likely insurance would not cover it.
Option 3) See an orthodontist and use various braces and bridges to get things back in line.
Pro: we know a good orthodontist, but there’s no guarantee this would work. We’d need to talk to him about the prognosis, but it is highly likely there will be some permanent injury to the jaw and teeth that can’t be fixed.
Con: expensive, probably $15,000–$25,000 and likely not covered by insurance.
Option 4) The dental surgeon said he could remove all of her lower teeth and do one of those one day replacement of all her lower teeth.
Pro: Phyllis’ teeth and gums are not in good shape and that would take care of that for the future.
Con: we don’t know the expense, but not cheap, and probably not covered by insurance. Also, her bone weaknesses may not allow for this.
So, now were’ thinking these options over and will do some exploration into the details of several of these options, at the same time.
Hope this helps catch you up! Thanks for your prayers about this.
6/5/2023, 12:00 pm: Met with family doctor today to try to better understand why Phyllis feels so nauseated all the time and weak. The doctor prescribed some medicine to reduce the nausea and maybe help with the depression (which may be the underlying cause for it), but it will take a month or so for the medicine to “kick in.” Tomorrow we see the dental surgeon to see what he recommends forward regarding her teeth.
5/31/2023, 9:42 pm: Tomorrow we meet with a dental surgeon to assess with him what’s next. We meet with him at 3:00 pm local time.
Phyllis is pretty depressed at this point, still has pain eating, still can’t chew very well and has not gained weight. She’s weak and tired and does’t want to go out of the house, so I’m concerned. Thanks for your prayers about this.
5/23/2023, 9:30 pm: We found out some good news today about some of the dental procedures ahead of us. After some phone calls to our insurance it appears that since her teeth were damaged in the fall, dental repairs will be covered by insurance. That’s very good news! Praise God.
We are on hold a little while because the dentist and dental surgeon want Phyllis’ nerve pain in her teeth and surrounding tissues to settle down more before they take next steps. They’ve been studing her post “wire” removal CT scan (just before the removal of the anchor braces), to get a sense of how things look internally. She meets with the dental surgeon on June 1st where more tests, X-rays and perhaps more scans will take place and we’ll know more where the repair goes from there. Thanks for your prayers!
5/21/2023, 11:oo pm: She has made progress in her recovery, but still needs to gain weight and strength as of today…still needs about 10 more pounds of weight. Since her jaw is aligned properly, but her teeth are not (results from the injuries), she still has to eat a restricted “soft” diet that requires very little chewing. We saw her dentist this week and gave her the CT scan of her head that was just made about 2 weeks ago, before they took out the metal from her mouth.
The dentist saw that the teeth on Phyllis’ upper right side do not touch the teeth on lower right side. This might be due to the fact the injury knocked the teeth on the left side “down” from the bone on the right side so that they’re longer than before. Her front teeth have moved forward from the adjustments that were made in surgery. Our dentist wanted to consult with a dental surgeon to think through how to go about getting her upper and lower teeth on the right side to meet so she can chew.
That might mean they lengthen the right upper and lowers through caps or do some reduction of the teeth length on the left side so both sides get closer to meeting at the same time. The dentist requested we give her four or five days to do research, look at the scans and do consultation. She did call us a day later and saiid the dental surgeon recommended waiting a few weeks to see if the pain in Phyllis’ teeth calms down—the pain is thought to be from injuries to the nerves in her teeth and surrounding areas. The dentist said by now that nerve pain should have calmed down, and is a little disconcerted it hasn’t done so.
Emotionally, Phyllis is worn out and depressed that this has happened to her, the slowness of recovery from a serious injury and being unsure how this will end up. This is despite no nerve damage in her face from the injury and not much noticeable disfigurement—her smile is a little crooked, but not too noticeable.
So, that about sums it up and we remain in a waiting mode to hear back from the dentist. Thanks for your prayers!
5/13/2023, 4:15 am: Late this Friday afternoon Phyllis had surgery for removing the arch braces that served as anchors for the jaw wiring, removed from her mouth. It was a short procedure lasting only about 20 minutes, but because of earlier surgeries it was delayed 3 hours. No problem. It occurred 8 weeks, almost to the hour of when she fell and fractured her jaw in three places and broke and bent some of her teeth a bit.
We were home by 6:30 pm and Phyllis was feeling fine again. In fact, she had some supper because she had recovered well enough from the anesthesia, with no nausea and not too much sleepiness. Before we went to bed this evening she agreed that we could on Sunday go for lunch in Ft. Collins with a Christian professor’s family, who had invited us. That was a answer to prayer—that she’d be feeling well enough to make the trip and share the meal on Mother’s Day.
We now begin what I’d call phase 2 of her recovery, which appears to be mainly a dental one and regaining about 10 pounds of weight. It will be a new phase that is marked at the end of the first phase by no pain, no extra medicines to take, no nerve damage to her face or disfigurement, and her teeth pretty well-aligned. Praise God and to Him be the glory and thank you for your prayers! For now...
5/12/2023, 4:05 pm: After 3 hours of delays, they just moved her into surgery for the removal of the anchor arches in her mouth. Indeed as I type this at 4:07 pm I was texted that the procedure had begun. She had about a 3 hour delay because surgeries before her lasted a long time. She’ll be under general anesthesia, so I expect to see her in recovery in about 2 hours or less. Thanks for your prayers!
5/9/2023, 1:19 pm: A quick catch up on Phyllis’ recovery: as you know, almost two weeks ago she had her “wiring” removed that had kept her mouth and teeth shut for six weeks. At first the transition to being able to open her mouth and eat more solid food was slow and frustrating for her, but in the last four days or so she has been able to do so much better.
As a result she is eating more solid types of things: like chopped up Swedish meatballs and chopped up pasta. This has helped a great deal and she’s now feeling much better and has taken over preparing her own food and feeding herself. She also feels better because before the liquid diet left her feeling empty, but not so now.
This Thursday we see her surgeon again to see if her “chewing” is getting good enough so they can remove the anchors that used to hold the wiring in place. I suppose the reason they were left in is in case she needed to have her jaw wired shut again if things weren’t going as planned.
If that’s removed, then all the internal metal will be gone from her mouth and we can begin setting up dental and orthodontist appointments in the near future. Please pray this would go smoothly on Thursday with the surgeon and that the anchors can be removed. She’s taking Tylenol and Ibuprofen frequently enough that her headaches haven’t had a chance to show up…so for now she’s doing better on that front, too.
I have started posting her updates in an archive on our personal website that you can access at: https://www.jamesalcook.info/phyllis-update.html
Thanks for your prayers for her!
5/1/2023, 10:39 pm: In some respects her recovery is doing quite well. Last Thursday she had the wiring removed that kept her jaw shut, and in two weeks she’ll have the anchors for that wirings taken out, too. In answer to prayer her jaw’s fractures and repairs are healed enough to move on.
However, she is still having headaches each day (sometimes more than one) from the mild to moderate concussion she received from her fall. This is longer than expected. Also, her teeth were “moved” out of place, both the uppers and lowers, and that makes chewing all the more difficult because her teeth don’t yet meet properly. That chewing may get better over the next two weeks. It does look like in the longer run she’ll have to have a good deal of dental work done (maybe including braces), but we haven’t been able to pursue that yet and won’t be able to do so for another two to three weeks, even for diagnosis.
So, she continues to have mostly a liquid diet with some partially “solid” foods that are mashed up pretty well. In short, we have a long way to go before we arrive at a “new” normal and can better understand what she can do. In the meantime, keeping her weight up is very hard to do because she feels nauseated and is generally worn out and mildly depressed.
However, there is good news, too. Her jaw reconstruction went as good as we hoped and prayed and according to the CAT scan, is anatomically “accurate and in-line.” All of the swelling and bruising is gone, too, and she faces no facial disfigurement. Her pain levels from the surgery are mostly minimal.
4/26/2023, 11:12 pm: Briefly, Phyllis “passed” her Monday CT scan, which means she’s going to have some of her wiring taken out tomorrow (Thursday) and that’s a big breakthrough. These last two weeks have been pretty tough on her since she continues to have a liquid died (six weeks now). That will continue, but if everything goes well she’ll move to a more solid diet in a couple of weeks. Please pray everything goes well tomorrow and beyond. More at a later time.
4/20/2023, 2:43 pm: Yes, I saw you at CFN last time…and by the way, I thought what our speaker had to say was really good and well said. His story of God’s grace and coming to understand it is sort of the fundamental of all ministry we do and of spiritual formation: all under the grace of God.
Briefly, Phyllis is making improvements, but this week she is a little tired. Tired physically for an unknown reason and tired of eating a liquid diet through her wired jaws. Tomorrow will be 5 weeks to the day from when she fell.
She is off all of the “hard” pain medications, but does have headaches that are most probably due to the concussion (rated mild to moderate) from, again, the fall. The wiring hurts the inside of her mouth, but the good news is that if she’s healing properly, the wiring will come off a week from today—April 27th.
She’ll have a CT scan on Monday of next week to see if she is progressing enough to remove the wiring. She’ll still have on some brace like metal in her mouth to hold her teeth in place while she re-learns to chew again. (The damage to the left side of the jaw was so severe it won’t heal properly—as far as we know ever.) 2 weeks are allotted for that before those braces could come out.
So, we’re not out of the woods yet with the wiring and brace like things and re-learning to chew. However, we can praise God that she is recovering, off of most of the drugs, the bruises are gone and most of the swelling, able to eat and not be in the hospital now, able to walk now around the house and I am able to help out by shopping for groceries and making her liquid diet.
Again, we God the glory that we’ve made it this far and are trusting Him to heal Phyllis as much as He wants. The next steps will be seeing the dental surgeons to see what they can do to repair her teeth.
4/16/2023, 6:25 pm: I'm not sending this to everyone that I keep up-to-date about Phyllis, but just to you, to share with the Central Presbyterian's prayer warriors. Let me say again how much we appreciate those prayers and there has been definite answers to them, too.
Last weekend and the beginning of last week was pretty rough, though. Phyllis was feeling weaker and weaker and wanted to go to the hospital, but we were able to avoid that. The breakthrough came when Phyllis remembered that one of the problems she has because of her short bowel (due to the ileostomy she has) is becoming dehydrated. So, we made up a concoction that is very similar to Gator Ade—basically homemade Gator Ade. The next day she was already feeling better and has been the case at least the last five days.
She seems a little thinner (we have not weighed her in a while because she feels well), but is strong and keeping up her exercises.
So the prayer requests would be along these lines:
1) Her feeling of well being (most likely because of curing the dehydration problem) would continue.
2) She is scheduled for April 27th for the possible removal of the jaw wiring—that would be approximately 6 weeks from the accident and only about 11 days away. Just before that date she’ll have a CT scan to make sure things on the right side of her jaw are healing internally, as they seem to be. Please pray that would be so.
3) She will keep some of the “hardware” in her mouth after the removal of the wiring that now keeps her jaws shut. After that removal she’ll begin about 2 weeks of learning to eat again without the left side of her jaw attached to the skull. That bone structure was essentially destroyed in the accident. The doctor said it couldn’t be saved. She’ll eat more on the right side of her mouth, but learn to close her teeth so they meet properly, in-line. Evidently that’s a little tricky to learn.
4) After that 2 week period, somewhere along the line we’ll start seeing dental surgeons and dentists to understand the extent of the damage to her teeth and what can be fixed…like with caps and maybe even braces. We’ll see.
In summary, we’re making progress and we’re both doing well. I’ve had some good rest this weekend and ready to go this week. Oh, yes, Phyllis is now able to walk around the house, though she does go up and down the stairs when unassisted by “seat" walking. That increased mobility allows me to run errands and I have attended some of our faculty ministry meetings last week. The same will be happening this week if things stay on track.
Again, thanks for your prayers and hopes this catches you up!
4/6/2023, 10:42 pm: Today is day #16 for being at home. A brief update:
Earlier in the week we had our first bit of real panic. Phyllis had a hard day, felt foggy and was very tired of eating all the time. She felt “thinner” and announced that she felt it best to go to the emergency room to get fed through a tube. Whew, I was concerned and she felt a lot of urgency. We finally decided to call some doctors and get some advice before we went to an emergency room. This was the first major blip on the radar we had had in the healing process.
However, we couldn’t reach anybody on the phone. We’d get automated answering machines that directed us in circles and when we did talk to someone we got promises for a call back that never came. In the meantime she kept eating (more like drinking) her food because we couldn’t put that on hold. But we never did any call backs that evening. When we weighed her before bed she was 4 or 5 pounds lighter than her highest weight at home. That was a hard night’s sleep for both of us.
The next day we started feeding earlier and tried to add things to the diet where we could. We did hear back from the doctor(s), but they felt we should wait for a while and not panic. And so that’s what we did and we got better sleep.
On Wednesday we met with a nutritionist in Longmont and she gave 1 1/2 hours of her time with lots of suggestions for changes on diet. On her office scale Phyllis had gained about 1 1/2 pounds from her lowest weight. So things were back going the right direction even before this. We been much more relaxed yesterday and today and it looks like she’s gained another pound or so, which means she is only about 1/2 pound below her weight when she came home 16 days ago. That’s not too bad. So, the calories and food has been upgraded and Phyllis is doing so much better emotionally. Whew. : )
By the way, Phyllis is completely off the powerful pain medicine she was taking and generally her pain levels remain at about 4 out of 10. Next week she sees her surgeon to get his regularly scheduled evaluation on her healing progress. We’re very interested to see how that goes.
At the end of the day we are trusting the Lord and looking for what we can learn in our circumstances. The main lessons we are learning are perseverance and patience and we remind ourselves to give thanks in all things. Your prayers make a big difference to us and more importantly to Him. Thanks for your faithfulness in that. Please pray we don’t miss out on any life lessons He wants us to learn on the way and that we come through this with strengthened faith. The Lord is present with us and we feel that encouragement moment to moment—I guess, except when we panic. : )
4/1/2023, 6:42 pm: You have been so faithful with prayers and keeping in touch!
One new concern we have is that Phyllis’ weight, which had been going up generally speaking with slow progress, the last two days has bounced around some. Some of that may be due to the scale we use at home and it not be exactly right all the time. Nonetheless, we’re a little concerned that she’s getting tired of eating so much and not gaining weight as fast as hoped.
Because she has had health problems before with her digestive track that required surgery in 1983 and again in 2001 or 2002, she does not always absorb nutrients from her regular diet as you might hope for. So, with that condition and her mouth wired shut, she’s more on a knife edge regarding recovery and her bones healing.
The nutritional challenge is one of the reasons she’ll have her mouth wired shut for a total of 6 weeks instead of 4 weeks. It’s to allow the bones in her jaw more time to better heal. Her weight either remaining the same or varying give us cause for concern. It’s of more concern because she (as I said above) getting tired of “feeding” many hours of the day. She’s getting a little sick of it. Yesterday was a rough day. Today is a little better with that.
I am so grateful you can share this prayer request with you, for God to bring about her healing and regarding her nutritional and appetite challenges. We also will see a professional nutritionist on Tuesday morning of this coming week who is familiar with Phyllis health issues and who will likely provide help and new advice.
3/30/2023, 3:06 pm: Phyllis has been recovering at home for 9 days now.
Earlier today we were scheduled to see her surgeon, but he forgot to put the appointment into his phone and we instead met with one of “his” nurses. His nurse removed stitches on right side of Phyllis' jaw and on the chin itself. The surgeon was skillful and hardly anything was left but the thinnest scars.
Yesterday we met with the physician assistant to Phyllis'’ gastroenterologist and she has set us up with a nutritionist that we’ll meet with next week.
Speaking of nutrition, we are monitoring her weight once a day and her blood pressure twice each day. Since coming home she’s gained about 2 pounds and though her blood pressure was quite high during her time at the hospital and the surgery, it has returned to a normal range. Tested at the doctor’s yesterday, her BP was 118/74, which was the lowest recorded so far post-surgery.
Her bruises are disappearing slowly and the swelling has come down well on the left side of her face, but reducing more slowly on right side where most of the surgery was done.
Phyllis’ pain levels have remained at about 5 out of 10, with less and less pain medication. She does have “new” sensitivity on the right upper side of her face—from what I am told is possibly a result of the edema migrating downward on her face. Her headaches, most probably due to the concussion she had (rated mild to moderate), are reducing in frequency and intensity. She has had none today.
So, I’d call this steady progress in the right direction. Thanks for all your prayers!
3/29/2023, 3:20 pm: Let me reply to your questions.
First, Phyllis has been home now a week and a day. She is making slow progress, but definitely progress pretty much everywhere. Her blood pressure which was extremely high during her time at the hospital (an unbelievable 220/120) when admitted, has erratically and now consistently been going down. At a doctor’s office today (her gastroenterologist) her BP was 118/74. (We’re also tracking her blood pressure at home twice a day and weighing her once a day.) All this is answered prayer.
One bit of “bad” news is that our scale at home weighed her 6 pounds heavier than did the scale at the doctor’s office today. For many that would be good news, but Phyllis for the last 40 years has problems keeping weight on! We thought she was at the same weight she was before the hospitalization and surgery. Now we realize she’s “thinner” than what we thought and feeding her more has gotten our attention.
Since we’ve been weighing her at home on our scale, she’s gained 2 pounds in a week relatively speaking on our scale. However, the scale at the doctor’s reveals she lost about 8 pounds relative to her hospital stay! On finding that out, we were concerned at first, but we think it only means we have to keep doing what we’re doing (because she is gaining weight) and feed her even more calories in coming days. Her doctor recommended a nutritionist that we’ll get hold of later today and go from there.
The bruises on her face and chest continue to decrease, but not all of the swelling has decreased to the extent we hoped for. The right side of her chin (up high) near the ear is still noticeably swollen and is going down very slowly despite plenty of off and on cold-packs. I guess it just takes longer because that’s where the surgeon did most of his surgery repair work.
Our son seems to be doing well with Phyllis’ progress and prognosis, even though we haven’t yet faced how it’s going to be after the wiring (to keep her jaws shut in order to heal) comes out. Still, that’s some answered prayer so far as things go with our son! Our son Scott keeps things in and we have to pull it out of him to really see how he’s doing. Guardedly we think he is doing well.
Since some of her damage to her jaw was irreparable, it appears at some point she’ll have to re-learn a new way to eat…we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Also, her pain levels keep slowly going down, almost never now higher than 5 out of scale of 10. So, that’s good and answered prayer!
We’re also still giving, but weening her off, oxycodone which is powerful drug that we use to manage her pain, but that needs to end pretty soon. As a non-doctor i would say she’s taking such a low doze (now down to 1/4 doze) less than 4 times a day and that she’ll be able to avoid an addiction to its pain relieving properties when she comes off completely. Please pray that she will.
All of this has been a good opportunity to pray about a lot of things. In many ways, we have an embarrassment of riches in Christ…so many friends praying for Phyllis and we don’t take it for granted. Phyllis’ main need for prayer is for her to see how God is loving her through many friends and close relatives. She knows that God is working and reaching out to her, but her temperament/personality makes it harder for her to feel that, even though she knows it. I’d like her to see and experience the whole thing and praying to that end.
On the whole I’m doing fine, especially in spurts. Consistent sleep at nights makes things better. One piece of good news in the ministry. In early March I gave a talk to some faculty attended by a visiting professor (Microbiology) from the University of Belfast, Ireland. We have hit it off and he has asked me to train him in starting ministries in Ireland likes he’s seen in ours. Today we had a one hour conversation by Zoom to see that discussion go on and I’m very excited to see that God has seen fit to open a big Irish door for us to have ministry to faculty in a new place overseas. To God be the glory as I pursue this opportunity.
You are so kind to pray for us and to encourage others to do so. May God be glorified in all this.
3/24/2023, 9:41 pm: Having come home on Wednesday evening, let’s call this the end of Day 3 at home…even though it hasn’t been 3 full days.
Phyllis has come a good ways. She’s “seat walking” our stairs for exercise because she’d have to do a couple of 100 laps around the first floor to get enough exercise in. She’s doing well and we slowly increase each day and each half day, stair laps. She’s been eating puree soups, Ensure and Boost (with extra protein), and banana/raspberry and pineapple/mango smoothies. She sips better and better now, and we have a syringe type injector that she can use to “push” the liquified food into her mouth. The obvious problem is that her fractured jaw is wired shut so there’s not much room to get anything by the teeth into her stomach. But, we’re doing it somehow.
Also, we weighed her today and she exactly the weight she had on the same scale before this incident came about. That’s encouraging because the doctor made it clear she has to maintain enough nutrients and calories to make sure her jaw and other bone heal properly. In case I haven’t said it before, it looks like she’ll be “wired” for six weeks to make sure the healing is secure.
She’s also talking with clenched teeth better and more understandably. We’re sleeping much better at home and though we’re both tired, this circumstance is a marked improvement over noise in our hospital room, which was across from the nurses station with all its beeps and conversations. We are taking it one day at a time. We’re praying together for you and for friends who like us are going through some rough times with their health. Thanks for the advice you have given us and for your support through prayer. We want the storms of life to draw us closer in our fellowship with the Lord and each other and we pray the same for you.
3/21/2023, 8:21 pm: We’re home, thank God, as of 7:00 pm local time. Phyllis is resting in our bed. That’s all for now. : )
3/21/2023, 1:02 pm: …the surgeon just stopped by.
Not too much to add from what the trauma doctor had to say earlier today, except he seemed to think she could go home today if she really wanted. The surgeon didn’t seem clued in on her pain level, which was the main issue the trauma doc said she should stay for. Oh, well. Bottom line: she’s staying today, we’ll see about tomorrow.
He (the surgeon) did stress the importance of her maintaining her weight when I get her home and getting enough daily calories in order for the bones to heal. That’s the key he emphasized.
He mentioned again that her bones up near where the ends meet with the skull were soft (much softer than the rest of her jaw bone) and that’s what he is concerned heals because he’s got a plate in there with screws and that’s got to heal in the 4 to 6 weeks period before he can undo the wired jaw.
3/21/2023, 10:36 am: Very briefly, one of the trauma doctors saw us just now, but not the surgeon. His evaluation is that Phyllis’ pain level isn’t low enough for her to go home today, so we won’t.
We will at least stay another day to see if they can get this under better control. She’s stronger and has been walking with assistance around the room, not yet in the hallways under supervision. That should come later today. Other than pain, she seems improving and doing well. Fewer and fewer wires and tubes are attached. Counter-intuitively, bruising has become more evident.
3/20/2023: It’s Monday, March 20th about 9:30 am local. Let me give you a brief update.
Phyllis surgery yesterday lasted about 8 1/2 hours--she was away from her room for a total of 12 hours including preparation for the procedure and for her recovery afterwards. She got back about 11:30 pm and I could see she looked much better than when she went to surgery. We got her settled in till about 2:00 am and she seemed to be doing fine…groggy, but even smiling a lot.
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EDITORIAL INSERT, 7/14, 2023: after some reflection we think the surgery lasted more like 7 to 8 hours rather than 8 1/2; though, as we earlier said, she was away from her room in prep, surgery and recovery for about 12 hours!
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The specialist said the surgery at first went well and it was easy to repair the fracture on her chin. The problems occurred when trying to work on the bones where the jaw meets the skull. Those joints were badly fractured and one was beyond repair. He did repair the right side with metal (titanium) plate. Her face looks normal and she will need to strengthen her left side jaw muscles to better chew and that will take a little time. There was no fracture to her cheek bone as I earlier reported, somehow I got that wrong in the translation from them.
They were also able to “bend” back the teeth in the front of the mouth that had been bent or pushed towards the back. The surgeon says it was tough doing that, which indicates they’re still sturdily attached and she probably will not lose them Another tooth was cracked and they removed a small piece; she will need a crown for that in the future.
So, now the road to recovery has started. She’ll be released from the hospital on Tuesday if all goes well today and it seems so far they are. She has a bruised sternum from her fall and she’ll have x-rays today.
We wanted you to know because some have asked, we do have good insurance and we think unless there are some surprises all of her expenses including deductibles will be paid by insurance..so that’s a relief.
We are greatly in dept for your prayers! That reminds me that last night with the extended surgery (beyond the 4 hour expectation), I was beginning to worry about something having gone wrong with the procedure and my mind was “tempted” with negative thoughts. I didn’t want to go there. However, I realized I was being tested and decided to leave the depressing waiting room and go back to her room. While there, a man named Dave came in to prepare the room for Phyllis’ return. As we talked and he worked, I slowly realized that maybe God wanted me to talk to Him about Himself. To shorten the story, as we talked our conversation turned to spiritual things. The opportunity presented itself for me to explain the gospel to him and he prayed to receive Christ right there in her room with tears in his eyes. From his “story” I could see that this was a divine appointment for us both. So, I think, maybe that’s one reason God brought about the delays in completing the surgery. It was time for Dave. To God be the glory!
I will wait for a few days after we’re at home to write a briefer update if needed.
3/18/2023 4:52 pm: The surgeon stopped by our room and explained in some detail what is going on and that will go on during the surgery tomorrow. He predicted at least a 4 hour surgery.
Without going into detail, the doctor explained that Phyllis’ injuries to her jaw are the worst that they see. Some of it they cannot repair. He explain that they will be putting in some plates to stabilize things, but also working around nerves in her face that can be damaged during surgery. There are also a number of complications that can also follow this sort of operation including infections and follow-up surgeries. They will wire her mouth shut for about a month after the surgery to allow healing without movement. After that she'll need to retrain her facial muscles and chewing muscles to compensate for what cannot be fixed. We’ll have to wait until after that to find out what will be done with further repair of her teeth.
I was hoping and praying for a better consultation, but this is God’s hand in our lives. We’ve shed some tears, but God is God and we belong to Him and we wouldn’t want it any other way than to trust Him. Despite the negative prognosis, we are hoping in Him for a better result than expected but will live with whatever He sends us. Thanks for your prayers! It has uplifted us and reminded us that God has his eye on us—His eye on everyone of us, and He knew this turn of events was coming to us. We are sad but at peace…a blessing that comes with our years of blessed marriage and the Lord. Who else is there to seek but Him?
I will hold up for a little while, probably till after the surgery for an update.
3/17/2023 11:03 pm: On a walk this afternoon, Phyllis stumbled and fell on her face. I saw it happen, but was not quick enough to grab her and save her from the fall. It was a bad fall onto concrete, face first. We were not far from our house, so I sprinted home as fast I could, got our car, and then I rushed her to our local hospital emergency room.
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EXPLANATORY EDITORIAL ADDITION 5/31/2023: One of the main reasons Phyllis hit her jaw so forcefully on the sidewalk was that during the walk she had a jacket on and her hands were in her pockets. When she stumbled forward, she could not get her hands out of her pockets quickly enough to put them in front of her to break the fall.
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I could see right away that she was bleeding from the mouth and chin, and that her teeth in front had bent inward—some looked chipped. A Cat-scan was performed at the first hospital and the preliminary results were that she had fractured her jaw in two places, fractured the bones on both sides of her jaw where the jaw meets the socket, and the sockets were fractured on both sides. She also had a chin fracture. The doctor said the fractures were unfortunately bad and in bad places. Her left jaw was dislocated from the socket—pushed down and back.
We have now been moved from the hospital in our home town to a trauma hospital in Denver--Saint Anthony’s in Lakewood. Her blood pressure is high, but hopefully when it comes down to acceptable levels, they will run more tests and scans tonight.
From what our first doctor (at the other hospital) told us, Phyllis in all likelihood will undergo major (about 4 hours) of surgery tomorrow for repairs.
Would you pray for Phyllis and for her doctors? Thanks so much!