Dressings are off!

Here are some pictures of Rebekah's new arm, it looks fantastic. She is thrilled with the size of it compared to her right arm. Tomorrow she will start wearing scar pads to help reduce scarring. She is also doing lots of bending her wrist up and down to try to keep the tendons below the new skin from sticking (that happened with the inicial surgery). It is still tender to touch so we are gentle when massaging the scars/incisions with vitamin E. She wears an elastic glove (with the fingers tips missing) during the day to reduce swelling and the scar pads at night. She may wear the scar pad for her arm during the day just to cushion and protect it. We return to see the surgeon in 6 weeks, not until June! Her arm does look like a road map with the old scars and now the new incisions. If you look closely you will see the small slice of old graft that he was not able to cover. Rebekah can decide in June if she wants that worked on. The problem is we are running out of time before we head back to Peru. It is so small that, right now, she isn't interested in any more surgeries.

This Saturday at Our House

Everyone takes a turn on the mower.

Doing yardwork and planting flower seeds to improve our "curb appearance"

Rebekah helps with the grilling of supper

Mom teaches Benjamin how to clean and filet the bass he caught. It was delicious!

Update

Just a quick update on Miss Rebekah,

She is doing better today. Headaches are less and her arm was only a bit achy after school. Her spirits are better today too. She was kind of down in the dumps yesterday, understandably so.

She is beginning to itch under the dressing which is always annoying. A week from today the dressing comes off, yah!

Monday

Rebekah is having lots of headaches. She did take one pain pill for her arm after school today. Carrying those bags around all day and putting books in and out of her bag gets to her. Not sure what the solution would be, a personal assistant? I am going to call the surgeon tomorrow about the headaches she has been having since surgery. She has dark circles under her eyes and is tired. Keep praying.

A Good Day

Rebekah continues to do well although she has required several doses of her pain medicine. She is droopy tonight and has a headache.

Thanks for your prayers.

Surgery Number 5

Today the surgeon used the new skin we have stretched over several weeks to close over the graft donor site on Rebekah's forearm. He also pulled the graft site on her hand tight (he actually removed 1 inch of extra skin), sewed it down so that the back of her hand should look more normal, less puffy. The whole surgery took a total of 40 minutes! Longer to drive to Indy than the actual procedure. She will have the dressing on for 10 days. He was not able to cut out and cover the site on her forearm. He was lacking less than 1 inch of "new skin". He said he could finish that up in a couple of months if she wants it to be done. Please pray for her tonight and tomorrow, once the nerve block wears off she will be in pain.

Enjoy your Easter weekend celebrating the resurrection of our Lord and Savior. Pray that many Peruvians will see their need of accepting the free gift of salvation, not through works but by faith.

Pre-op - surgery #5

Post op - a sleepy daddy's girl and another big dressing

At home relaxing

We Have a Plan

I know it has been a long time since I have updated, truly it has been busy and we have been gone.

Anyway, Rebekah has her 5th and final surgery (at least that is the plan right now) on Friday at 12:30 PM. We have to be at the hand center at 10:30. Surgery should take an hour, recovery and hour and then we are homeward bound. She was disappointed it was so late in the day since she will be very hungry by then. Nothing to eat or drink after midnight. I am sure we will make a food stop on the way home:)

We don't know what the follow up details will be but Dr. Greenberg will fill us in on all of that after surgery.

Thanks to all who are taking over caring for the rest of our children on Friday. The Knolhoffs taking care of Jacob, the Boyers taking Abigail and my parents taking Benjamin.

Please pray that surgery will go well and her pain would be manageable. Since she will have 2 good sized incisions this time I expect she will have more pain. But the joy of knowing this is the last one gives her hope. She also knows that there is a slim chance there won't be enough "new" skin to cover the whole site and we will have to do the stretching, etc again, if she wants.