Hello everyone,
This is Sara! I thought I would come here and give you all a much-needed update.

I was finally discharged from HCMC May 18. The hospital stay was long and painful, frankly traumatic. I'm still processing all that happened and all that could have happened. The very next day, May 19, I spiked a fever and ended up back at HCMC after going to our closest hospital in Waconia and being transferred via ambulance back downtown. I was in bad pain again and expecting the worst. I begged God to preserve my life and I believe he did.

They got me back into a CT and found a smallish pocket of free fluid which they decided didn't need surgery just more antibiotics and I was discharged the next day. My experience at HCMC was so mixed. The nurses were amazing and I really did not have one negative experience with the nurses there! When you are in the hospital for a month it's pretty unlikely you won't come across someone having a bad day. But I really didn't, those wound and burn nurses are the best. The experience with staff of residents in charge of my daily care was almost the exact opposite, mainly negative with a couple neutral to positive experiences. 

We went straight from the hospital to my original surgeon's office. It was such a blessing to see her again. She didn't have privileges at HCMC, so she had been following and advising Jamin over the phone nearly every day! I don't think we could have navigated the difficult care decisions without her. When she examined me, she decided she could do a skin graft to close the wide wounds where they had to remove necrotic tissue. She said that would relieve my pain quite quickly, but that the donor sight where they took the skin would be pretty painful. The best part: NO MORE DRESSING CHANGES!!! (I cannot describe the pain of those...)

So the next morning we went back to her office and they took a large portion of the skin on my outer thigh and used it to close all the open places.  We are now almost a month out from that procedure and the grafts took 100%!! That is another miracle. I am almost completely weaned off of narcotic pain meds and the only pain I have now is the donor site (which is painful for sure, but nothing like any of the other pain).

It is getting better and I am trusting that I will be fully healed soon so that I can be back in my garden that my dad and sister Anna have been planting. Special thanks to them and to Kaija, my kids, and Steve & Diane, who all dropped everything and came to keep our world going. And to Margaret, who was by my side every day witnessing and documenting everything and really “doula-ing” me. Oh, and of course, my beloved Jamin, who had to balance our farm, a new big job, medical decisions and the very scary unknown first few weeks and still be dad and husband. He carried it well. Thank you God for giving me such a life, may I steward the days you have given me well. 

Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts and various ways of support. What a gift to be so loved. Looking forward to spending my 50th year and beyond with much less drama! Well, the scary drama anyway.

Sara