Wednesday surgeon phone call . . .

I met with my St. Louis surgeon today and the visit was somewhat productive. I was able to see a wound specialist, while at his office. She gave me a prescription for a different ointment to attempt to heal the wound. It is something that pharmacies don't normally carry and is quite expensive, so I am going to check on Thursday to see if there is an alternative.

I am still working on finding a suitable anesthetic person for the spinal epidural injection. Nothing has been able to get scheduled on this yet.

The best thing that happened today was at 4:40, I called the Chicago surgeon and left a message for her to call me back. At 5:45 she returned my phone call .... yeah! She could tell that I was stressed and upset with all the coordination of details. We discussed a lot in a short amount of time and she is going to be very involved in the physical therapy care and plan of action (this has never happened before & should have). She offered to do the follow-up toe surgery in Chicago, if I was more comfortable with this option (yes!). She encouraged me to remain strong and continue to hang in there. She agreed that social and work issues related to this are important aspects, that need to continue to be addressed. I e-mailed her tonight and asked if we could do the toe surgery the first week in May. Pray that she agrees to this & she isn't on vacation this week &/or can work me into her schedule. If this works, it would allow me a short break for the next two weeks before beginning with additional surgery. Recovery would be 4 weeks with toe pins, which would basically be all of May. No cast, but walking would be limited to the heel area only.

I have a work conference during the first three days in June and then several hundred kiddos for summer camp (all of June), so the bottom line is that I have to be functioning much better and walking by June.

Physical therapy is staring at 4:00 this Friday. I will work with the same therapist in Chesterfield (next door to my office), that I have worked with in the past. Therapy sessions will be three times a week, until we do the toe-surgery and then will likely continue after that surgery.

If I can have a short break from surgery now and hopefully have all the surgery done before summer starts, I will feel much better about all of this. Praising and thanking Him that I was able to speak directly to the Chicago doctor yet today ... keep praying!