Thank You!

I want to personally thank each of you who have been tracking along with me on this journey and who have been praying for me since you first heard about the injury I had to my face! I would have posted earlier but our Internet hasn't been working at home for the past couple of days.

I have truly been able to sense your prayers along every step of this process. I'll share some of those specific things in a post to come later.

Everything went as well as could have possibly been expected with the surgery and with my initial recovery time in the hospital. I saw the doctor yesterday about 12:30 and was discharged from the hospital at 1:30 yesterday (Friday).

The biggest thing right now is the size of the right side of my face. It's incredibly distorted and swollen. The swelling was actually worse yesterday then it was on Thursday right after the surgery. But since coming home the swelling has gone down a little bit and will continue to go down over time.

The best ways to continue to pray would be ...

(1) Continue to pray against infection where the incisions were made (in my mouth and below my right eye)

(2) Pray that my cheekbone would completely heal and be like new again. As a part of this, pray that I avoid re-injuring it, which could easily happen if even I were to bump into something, etc.

(3) Pray that the swelling would continue to subside. According to the doctor, the best way this will happen is for me to stay off my feet, continually keep ice on my face and keep my speaking to a minimum. This leads to another request ...

(4) I'm suppose to remain very inactive for the next 4-6 weeks so that I'm able to heal completely and the swelling is able to complete subside. Pray that I would have the patience needed and would resist the temptation to do things that would cause my healing process to be slowed. Basically anything that causes blood to rush to my head, which could lead to increased swelling, should be avoided. Anything from mowing the yard to simply bending over to tie my shoes.

(5) Pray that I would be able to sleep well at night and that the pain would continue to remain manageable (thank the Lord for pain medication!!).

(6) Pray for Rachael as she not only has to take care of Haley this summer but now also has a big kid to take care of as well. She has lots of help from both our families and I am able to do some things, but pray that she'd still be able to enjoy her summer "off" of teaching and would stay encouraged during what will probably be a long next month or so.