Coffee Break #100!

praying for good result

Thank you. I'm home now! The procedures and the science are completely amazing. Can't say they've made it painless, though. Stitches come out in two weeks. Never before have I heard a doctor be so confident of their work either. She guaranteed she coud fix the eyelid so it closes, and predicted she might get the binding and vibrating feeling out of my neck. At the end she said she was successfully able to remove the entire mass of misfiring muscle and nerve tissue from my jawline, she thinks the twitch under the eye will be gone from her trimming, and the twitch and inability to smile on one side may be fixed over time as the nerve heals. I don't mind if there are signs of a work in progress--this is how I garden.

Good news!

Excellent, Rosemary......it's amazing what doctors can do today with lasers! Hartford's TV station has a segment called Medical Rounds, & one of the urologists from Hartford Hospital, who happens to be the son of a friend, was on the other night explaining how docs can now make a new bladder for people suffering from bladder cancer.....since my cousin suffers from this, I was very happy to see what can be done.....

There are so many amazing new medical developments. I am wishing they could have done this work with lazers too. The eyelid repair involved pulling nerve endings through the skin, testing them and then snipping some off. The docs said they offered their blue plate special because they performed three surgeries in different areas where the seventh facial nerve has its path. Since it is still a relatively new procedure Mass Eye and Ear was the only place that does all three.

Just saw the request for prayers and then the good news of the post surgery news. Very glad it went well and am hoping for continued progress in the recovery.

We have spent the last two nights in Annapolis at our son's and will be home tonight. Whew!!! What a whirlwind summer! Over 12,000 miles.

Rosemary, that sounds like a remarkable surgery.....glad it went well! Glad you're almost home, Jan, you certainly had a long & wonderful trip!

We all hope the healing goes well, Rosemary.

Folks here are so nice! It really helps.

Rosemary, I'm just checking in and saw your thread. I'm so happy it went so well for you. I m thinking you had this done at Mass General? The doctors and staff there are so amazing. If it weren't for a very competent doctor there, I might not still be here. Take good care of yourself and let everything heal well. You will be in my prayers!

Yes this is pretty much a miracle. Mass Eye and Ear was the hospital (a division of Mass General), to be precise. Even the "lowliest" orderly was courteous and competent. Surgical team inspired confidence or I would not have allowed them to make so many cuts into my face, or prune some of the nerve while I was awake from the anesthesia. Still have to have faith because vision is not fully restored yet and restoring and retraining facial muscles will take many months. It has not been easy to explain this at work either since they won't know people who also had this procedure, so I'm sure they think I'm being a lazy worker trying to a few weeks off. I am trying not to think too much about that.

I'm sure they won't Rosemary....any operation needs a long recovery....Hey, Louise, glad to hear from you!

sounds like everything went well rosemary - not often you hear a doc so positive!

Rosemary....i'm sure it will take time and effort, but you are so motivated and conscientious that I have great faith in your full recovery! Prayers continue. If there's any question at work ( can't help but doubt it seeing what kind of person you are) I would just have someone from Mass Eye and Ear speak with whoever has questions. I am on the Board of a Foundation that works closely with Mass Eye and Ear, and they are superb. I have every feeling that you are in the best hands possible. Aren't we so fortunate to be so proximate to what many physicians feel is the best hospital in the world?! If I end up needing surgery on my broken hand, that is where I will go.

Hi Marilyn. I have not intended to be a shirker...LOL....just circumstantial hiatus. I have a lot of threads to catch up on. How are things in your neck of CT?

Louise....broken hand? What happened? Not a great time of year to be incapacitated......

Yes Louise, please tell us what is happening. How is your hand?

My stitches came out today. Indeed they are telling me to take yet a few more days off next week, so I have first called the HR dept before I talk to my work team. Mass Eye and ear will write a new document and they have indeed offerd to talk to my managers if I think it will help. I think medical leave is mandated pretty clearly but my department is short staffed, so this may get sticky because of how they manage the departments and budgets.

Rosemary, definitely take the time off.......healing is a lot slower than we like to think it is.....

Amen to that, Marilyn! How are you feeling now, Rosemary? Hope you have bounced back quickly!

Ohh! Thanks for asking, Louise. I just replied on the pets thread. Swelling has gone down a lot so I have a cheekbone. Still tired and quick to become dizzy, but I am easing back into my job, being pretty spunky about what I will and won't do at work. A week and a half ago I lost balance stepping on an acorn on my front steps. Very luckily no broken bones when I fell down the last two steps, but it is all making for a woozy brain, and for now I am using all the elevators regardless of how long someone has to wait for me.

Good for you. that sort of loss of balance is common, operation or no. Acorns are dangerous things. glad that you are all right.

Sorry to hear you fell, Rosemary....that ground comes up awful fast as I learned this past winter!

There ought to be a law against falling. At court today, I stepped into a spill on the floor and the only thing that prevented a fall was that I was already walking slowly and could get balanced again. With improvement it will get even harder to remember, I'm sure. It is so not worth it to get hurt. Bending down to work in the garden just isn't in the cards right now, either, as much as I'd like to.

I have used a kneeler to get up from the gardening position. To my disgust I now need it to get down. It ought to be mechanized. ☺

Now there's an idea for a mechanical engineer's student project!

Sounds good to me!

Louise, how is your hand mending? your healing is in my prayer list too.

You know it's true about getting a device. I would sit on the ground to weed if only I didn't also have to stand up again. Earlier this summer my husband was suggesting devices to work on with my son as a business to help people so they don't lose balance, thinking to market for conditions like Meniere's disease. For now, I hope neither quits their school or day job!

Aren't they wonderful, though, to think of something like that!

Apparently engineers learn a lot about balance, and not just about gyroscopes.

My Mom worked for Timex.....she would bring gyroscopes home for me to play with! Also cool Minnie Mouse watches.....

What happened to summer? Frost warnings out for this week....too depressing!

We are missing those, I am glad to say. We are near the coast & at a lower elevation. 52°

Wow. It's too early for frost! I appreciate the heads up so I can decide whether to bring in the tender plants.

I'm just starting again to shape the weeds so our hill looks like a meadow. Where it smelled like carrots I figured to leave the Queen Ann's Lace. Ditto for the goldenrod, milkweed and NE aster. I'll have to post a few of the wild ones that are in bloom. You can finally see there are hardy ageratum, salvias, goldenrod, helenium, rubeckia, nepeta, various hosta flowers, and cardinal flowers, but please parden me for mixing the nomenclatures. There's a gourd plant with yellow miniature pumpkins twining along the new clematis, coexisting very well. An obvious refugee from the compost underneath the tower.

it sounds lovely! Nice mix of fall bloomers......I lost all of my lobelia during last winter.....I will, of course, plant again....always the optimist!

I agree that lobelia is worth doing again.

I had both the red & purple....will definitely get more.....

red is the only one hardy for me - got some pink and purple and they never make it through winter.

I've had a purple for 3 or 4 years, but because this winter was so brutal, it died out....

Has anyone grown malva? I'm trying to keep it from wilting in the vase.....there has to be some trick to keeping it going....

Nope

Guess not many folks grow it, especially for cut flowers.....