The business and blessings of our Beckstead family.

After a miraculous stay at the hospital, Sid was discharged on Thursday - exactly one week from his surgery. I use "miraculous" very intentionally. There isn't a logical reason for Sid to be healing so well. We were told his stay would most likely be 10-14 days.  I should make mention that the obvious blessings apparent in this journey do not (and have not) always help us avoid difficulties. The first night home was incredibly hard. The instant shift from having a professional nurse monitoring all of Sid's meds, food, wound care, etc to us taking on all of that responsibility, was... overwhelming. Every department sends you home with a literal packet of info to read and there are some discrepancies on how to handle certain care. I consider myself a very capable person and I also have a decent background in medical care between my days as an EMT and my college job at the plasma center. It was still a lot to have thrust on us all at once. But with some good planning and...

Sid has been recovering so well! His doctor is so pleased with his progress. For the most part the pain has been very controlled with only a few rough goes.  At this point we are all just waiting for his intestines to finish waking up so that they can remove the NG tube that's removing his stomach acid and one of the chest tubes that's draining excess fluids from the surgery site internally. Each day he is getting more mobile and stronger. Hopefully tomorrow those tubes will be removed!

Yesterday was surgery day.  There was much stress and anxiety leading up to it. Honestly, for me, the most stress was in preparing to leave and much of that was alleviated once we got the kiddos sent of with Grandma and left the house ourselves.  We left Wednesday night and stayed that evening with Sid's mission president. It was a really good night due to our time in the temple and chatting with them.  We had a very early start to our day. Check in at the hospital was at 6:00. Surgery time officially started at 8:27 and I received the last text update at 4:41 saying it was done. If you include when they started the sedation process which started around 7:30, it was a 9 hour long procedure. What a work day for the medical staff!  When we got to the hospital, I felt a sense of anticipation, but I don't remember feeling scared or even nervous. As soon as I left the prep room and he started being wheeled back I just felt peace.  I know so many were praying; praying...