Carson is exhausted. The family is exhausted and I am not inspired to write, maybe because the mountain in front of us feels so big.  And I suppose objectively, it is. 

The emotions are so exquisitely painful and yet they are rooted in love, compassion, family, gratitude and certainly wrapped in a blanket of sorrow and grieving. 

Carson’s graft surgery Friday was successful.  Unfortunately, there were too many staples in his left leg (the injured leg) for the surgeon to get clean tissue, so they had to take the graft from the other leg.  The graft was deep…it’s very painful.

Thursday night, the night before surgery, Carson experienced the most painful night yet.  I didn’t think it was possible and it lasted the better part of 3 hours.  The trauma surgeon left the ER to come spend over an hour with Carson trying to get the pain under control.  It was all nerve, but a combination of sciatic nerve pain firing into the hamstring and feet where he said he felt his leg was on fire.  And then the femoral nerve was “waking up” from the nerve block that was taken out on Sunday, and he felt his knee was splitting in two. 

So, the Thursday night through Saturday afternoon were excruciating. 

But they put the nerve block back in on Friday (for another 5 days) and we made some pretty significant changes to medications on Saturday.  Carson got a decent night sleep last night if you consider getting woken up every 75 minutes decent.  His pain was greatly reduced and his appetite was back.  Speaking of, he’s probably lost 15-20lbs. in 3.5 weeks. 

This coming week?

Take the nerve block out, get the pain under control, remove the wound vac on Friday.  He’ll likely recuperate for another 4-5 days in the current room after Friday, before attempting a Rehab/Occupational Therapy facility. 

And, while continuing to pursue the best possible treatments for the sciatic nerve which is a long and complicated uncertainty, we begin meeting with knee surgeons to explore next steps.   

Hard few days.  Hope to give an update in a day or so of Carson experiencing some big positives.