Tuesday's Success!

Wow, what a difference a few days can make. Sam moved to Mary Free Bed hospital and rehabilitation center Monday late afternoon. He slept much of the day. He was up in his wheelchair for just a short time and went right back to bed.

Today, Tuesday, Sam woke up with a bigger smile (he is off the big pain drugs that upset his stomach). He would rather have some pain than endure a bad stomach. He had a fairly full day of rehab scheduled (dressing, weights, bed to wheelchair transfer, range fo motion, stretching, and balancing). He got in his chair at 9am and went full tilt until after 9pm. He is determined to improve fast. We had a little pizza party for him with some family and friends. He was full of smiles. It is soooo gooooood to see some of his old self back again. I watched him struggle 10 minutes getting his 2 socks on this morning. Try doing that without using any leg mussles AND not able to balance your torso without both arms. I took almost all my energy to hold myself back from helping, but the therapist kept doing the coaching. He finally did it, and he did it with a great attitude and never complained. I was so proud of him. I would have probably said some choice words and punched the therapist. It is amazing what they can teach him.

Thanks again for your prayers and encouragement. They do encourage us and Sam as evidenced by his progress.

Still no feeling or movement in his legs. We are not giving up!
Randy.

6/27 Sunday night update

So, today was a pretty good one for Sam. His grandparents all came by to see him and it was great. Plus, he received a wonderful gift that put a huge smile on his face - an X-Box. An X-Box had been on the top of his Christmas list for the past 2 yrs and now he finally has one.
On the down side, last night we learned something we didn't know about Sam, which was an allergy to a new medicine (one for nausia). He had a terribly itchy, tough to breath 6 hours before it finally wore off. Guess we now have an answer to the question they always ask about if he's alergic to anything.
As he goes to sleep tonight, his back pain is under control but his stomach ache isn't. That will be his 1st question for the doc tomorrow morning.
We think he may be moving back to Mary Freebed tomorrow so that sounds good too.

Saturday

Sam's pain is starting to calm down a little. I guess after the 3rd surgery in 2 weeks, I would be sore also! His temperature is normal which tells us that the infection is under control. Our hope is that he can get his brace back on and sit up on Sunday to meet his Grandparents who were in Israel when this happened. On Monday we should head back to Mary Free Bed (which I don't really think is "free") to start rehab again. He is also looking forward to seeing the friends he made there.

Thanks again for your prayers, support, acts of kindness, and encouraging cards & notes. They are appreciated and valued.
Randy, Kris, Luke, and Sam.

Whew, surgery is done

It's 10am and surgery is done. It went well. Looks like the infection is on its way out and Sam's back is nicely closed back up. I am so glad - that 12 inch open back incision was pretty freaky.
So, it looks like we now have 6 weeks of some major IV antibiotics + oral antibiotics. After that, he'll probably drop the IV and take both orally for 6-9 months. The reason for continuing so long is both to kill the bug and more importantly to protect the hardware in Sam's back. They want to try really hard to rid the titanium of the infection but it sounds like that's easier said than done.
Then next winter/spring time they'll take Sam off the antibiotics and test his blood to see if the infection is still there. If it is, they'll need to remove the hardware in his back. This is something we definitely hope to avoid, but it will need to be done if the infection still lives on the titanium. Dr. Brown says removing it is a major deal, but not so terrible. By then Sam's back would be strong enough on its own and it wouldn't affect things much other than going through another surgery and recovery time. But, let's all hope we can kill the infection now and avoid any more surgeries for Sam!
Anyway, he'll be back up from recovery soon and we're hoping he's as hungry for Trix and he was this morning before surgery.
We think we'll move back to Mary Freebed on Monday. Yeah!
Thanks Thanks Thanks for all you prayers and love.

Surgery is set

We just got word that surgery is set for 7:30am tomorrow. We're glad Sam can get it over with in the morning and will let you know how it went as soon as we can.

Update 6/24 Thursday

It's Thursday morning and Sam had a pretty good night. He doesn't like being woken every 2 hours for various things, but if that's his biggest complaint then I'm happy.
Dr. Brown said the sponge in his back looks good and he'll schedule surgery for tomorrow to see if he can remove it and sew Sam's back back up. If there's still infection in there, he'll put in a new sponge and let it go another few days before going in to close it up.
I never thought I'd be thrilled if all Sam had to deal with was being paralyzed, but with this infection, we just can't wait to get back to Mary Freebed and only worry about rehab.
So, we'll just relax alot today (the morphine keeps Sam pretty sleepy)and look forward to Sam's favorite food for dinner tonight (friends are bringing him food from Olgas - yeah!)
THANKS for all your prayers and love.

Update 6/22 Tuesday - surgery

It's 10pm and Sam was just brought back up to his room after surgery to drain an infection from his back. Dr. Brown said it looked nasty in there. They've cleaned it out but left his back incision open with a sponge inside to collect and pump out any more infection that shows up. He's on a stong antibiotic so we hope it does the job. It looks like on Friday they'll go back in to make sure it's all clean then hopefully sew it back up.
Pray for him to feel better and for the infection to stay away.
And for the smile to come back.
Thanks.

Update 6/21 Monday

Tough day. Sam has been fighting nausea and a high fever. They've found infection in his back and are scheduling surgery for tomorrow afternoon. He'll be at St. Mary's for a few days.

Update 6/19 Saturday

Sam's had some good days. He's getting really strong and doing well in rehab.
He's getting used to lifting himself from wheelchair to bed & vice versa.
Great to have him smiling.

Here's what happened & contact info

This is the weblog for Sam Wassink, where family and friends can keep tabs on Sam's recovery as well as sending him prayers, comments, and thoughts. You can add you comments to any posting by clicking the 'Comments' section.

If you'de like to email Sam, use wassinks@comcast.net

A quickie on what happened:
On June 11, Sam was up at Silver Lake with Randy, Luke and 2 of Luke's friends - Joel and Jackson. Sam was on a quad and found a dune with a 8-10 ft dropoff on the other side. He and the quad went head over wheels and Sam landed in a pretty bad position. No one saw the accident but Joel was at his side pretty quickly. Joel flagged down someone who called DNR who then called for help. At that point, Sam was having a hard time breathing and couldn't feel his legs. He ended up being taken by AeroMed to Spectrum at about 4pm (NOT a fun 1st helicopter ride - it was pretty rough up there). By 10pm Sam was in surgery. His back was broken at T-9, which is about 1 inch above the belly button. Dr. Brown did a great job in surgery and Sam now has 2 12" titanium rods in his back along with some connectors and screws. We're told it will be 3-6 months before the swelling in his spinal cord goes down and 1-2 yrs before you really know how much feeling may come back.
Sam and all of us believe that since God created his spine, He can surely fix it. We are praying for a miracle - to get complete healing. Please pray with us.
We also know that if it's God's plan for Sam to live his life in a wheelchair, then that will be a good life too.
This is so out of the control of doctors. It's a God thing all the way.