Hello, friends and family of Sandy Robinson. We wanted to have a central information hub to keep you all posted on Sandy since there has been an outpouring of concern, good wishes and questions about her.
As you are aware, Sandy and Edward were driving from Louisville to Seabrook on Sunday, 6/21 when Sandy had a major fall in the parking lot of a rest stop. She fell face forward while stepping over a concrete parking bumper, injuring her left arm (ie her "good" arm) and her face. Due to the severity of her injuries and their remote location, Sandy was air lifted to the nearest hospital where she is today at University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, TN. Fortunately the scan of her head showed no hemorrhage, swelling, concussion or other acute abnormality however other scans did find a gastric perforation thought to be from an ongoing ulceration. She was taken to the OR on the day of admission for emergent repair and there were no complications from the procedure.
Additionally, she has two broken ribs and extensive damage to her left elbow which will require another surgery.
While we are all exceptionally grateful that the first surgery was unremarkable and that there was no trauma to her head, her hospital course in the ICU has not been seamless. They were concerned about maintaining her airway so she required intubation and ventilator support for about 24 hours after her first surgery. They were also having difficulty maintaining her blood pressure which required multiple medications for extra support. By Monday night there was a decision to postpone her second surgery on her arm in order to allow more recovery time so she was extubated and consequently was having difficulty swallowing (which is not uncommon after being on a vent). Yesterday she had a temporary tube placed for feeds and medications, and less than 24 hours later, in true Sandy Robinson spirit, she has already had that pulled.
As of this morning she was sitting up in a chair and swallowing water, huge milestones for her considering the extent of her injuries and her pain. She was scheduled to go back to the OR this evening for her arm but they moved up her time to this morning and is currently being prepped as I write this. My theory is that they moved up her surgery because she told them to.
She will require lots of physical therapy and support at least initially with two broken wings but everyone knows that if anyone can do it, it's Sandy Robinson. Even while she was on the vent, she was spelling out words in Ted's palm with her fingertip, asking about everyone, worrying if we were all eating and resting, telling the staff what to do (in the kindest way possible), feeling sorry about all the trouble and not wanting all the fussing over her. So, basically she was cognitively back to normal. We're just sorry the universe had to go to such great lengths to have Sandra C. Robinson finally rest and have other people take care of her for once.
We are grateful for all the love, support and good wishes and ask that you keep them coming for her and Edward. Anticipated discharge date is still TBD, depending on the rest of her hospital course but no earlier than Monday or Tuesday next week.
We will try to keep you all informed and post updates on this site periodically. Thank you again for all the support and please feel free to forward the link to her page (
https://www.caringbridge.org/public/sandyrobinson2) to other Sandy Robinson fans out there.
