Matthew will not be having surgery today. The surgeons are happy with the way the swelling is going down and content for him now to be on a low-fat diet to see how the thoracic duct responds.
He will have a wound washout and VAC change out on Friday. Thankfully it will be done at his hospital room bedside so that he will not have to go under general anesthesia.
They are speaking of discharging him from UCSF and sending him "home" with a portable wound VAC. He would then be outpatient, coming in for a wound washout every few days.
Within two weeks (and hopefully sooner), they would do a skin graft to cover the wound. That procedure and recovery would take about five days. It would be done at UCSF, not John Muir, as we understand it.
Unfortunately, there is no date set for them to do exploratory surgery. That surgery will tell us whether nerve reimplantation is possible since, but they cannot do that surgery until the chyle leak is resolved.
We feel very nervous about him being discharged since there are still so many issues to deal with. It is not like he can just go "home" and wait as an outpatient. It is not workable for him to return to his room at the apartment he shares with Jonathan in Oakland. Jonathan's lease is up soon and he will be moving to a smaller apartment in the area.
It looks like perhaps Matthew and Todd would need a place to live in or near San Francisco, where Matthew can be an outpatient for a while. He will need to have regular nursing care and doctor's check-ups while waiting for the exploratory surgery, as well as daily occupational therapy. Life would be very challenging while having an arm that he cannot feel or move or use at all while we wait for his chylous leak and skin graft to heal and wait for exploratory surgery.
This all seems very overwhelming at the moment from the practical and logistic side of things, regarding where Matthew and Todd should live, when and where Pam and the kids should be in the US (for a longer time other than their upcoming 10 day visit, Feb. 8-19).
We would also need to make arrangements for someone to stay in the house we rent in Croatia during the time we are back in the States. We are very thankful that there is a new couple coming to Croatia soon, and they have agreed to live in our house in Croatia, and cover part of that rent.
We appreciate your prayers and will keep you updated as we know more.
Grateful for you all,
Todd for all of the Prices
