News from the Denver Outpost August 18, 2007

Dear Friends,

Work, work, work. All work and no play. Today was more of a play day than a work day. Rachel complained of a sore left calf this morning and on closer observation actually had swelling in the ankle and the calf of her good leg. At rounds, the doctor gave orders for an ultrasound venous test to check for clots and said no getting out of bed until the results were in. Of course the doc was positive, and said we would have Rachel up and standing by noon or so. Unfortunately, it is almost 10 in the evening and we still have not gone for the test. Lots of trauma cases came in today, and the scan teams have been tied up all day. Far be it for us to be upset at the radiology team. Two weeks ago, we were the family desperately needing their talents and skills. We can afford to wait now. Happily, gladly, we will wait until they can take the time for us. We pray for those waiting for results, our souls call out to them knowing the pain.

Our new phones received a bigger workout today than did Rachel. Rachel enjoyed phone conversations with her sister Ilene, her parents, my sister Cheryl and with Jay and Leah. One of the questions asked dealt with the reason for the blood transfusion. Rachel does not have any internal bleeding that we know of at this time. The edema and weeping of her arm and leg wounds have included blood cells, and with the evac unit on, she is accumulating about 3 cups of fluids daily in that system. She needed the transfusion for oxygen carrying capacity, and to overcome some anemia effects from loss of red blood cells. We offer a big Thank you to the person who supplied that blood for the transfusion. If you, dear readers, are giving blood, we want to give you a big Thank you too.

Television made reappearance in our lives for the first time in two weeks. While we had occasionally turned a set on, we never seemed to settle to watch. Today though we were winding down from the previous big days, and needed something to fill the less demanding moments. We have been reading “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson out loud. Today even that did not seem to offer the intrapersonal moments we were each needing to meet our personal emotional and mental requirements. So, today we found that neither of the TV’s in our room played the same series of channels and some channels on one were not working on the other. Three “new” TV’s later we had two TVs that were acceptable, albeit both of these are only three human generations old, while their predecessors were at least four human generations old. One has decent color, while the other is a little too green. The rejected “new” set would probably have pleased the Smurfs.

Rachel also had a little time to grieve for Renee today, and that opened fresh wounds on Britanie’s and my hearts and soul. We shared some tears, huddled together as best you can huddle with a person with 18 broken ribs. We shared some stories and memories of little things that remind us of Renee. We love her, we miss her, and I am not sure the huge chasm in my heart will ever mend. So the tears at the bottom of this page are mine, and with that thought, I need to end this essay for now.

Renee, Zach, Jay, Leah, and Britanie’s Dad,