day 21 in hospital

dear all,
you know that you have been a long time in hospital when the nurses after couple days off come and say hi mrs kibble are you still here? but......there seems to be some progress today. they took the chest tube off the suction for 24 hours and x-rayed the chest to check for fluid build up and there is none. so in a couple of hours she will get some morphine and then the chest tube will be surgically removed. then we have to wait again and do x-rays tomorrow and a lung profusion to see what the fluid output etc will be like. so this is the first ray of hope that we are moving in the right direction. normally the body would be able to get rid of the fluids and the chest tube could have been taken out long ago, but because of chyles complication and the damage to the lymphatic system the body cannot do its normal job. so cara is at the physio gym right now. oupa wolfgang has just come to say good bye as he is catching his flight back now via frankfurt on the lufthansa flight that we were supposed to be today. but we told him he must take a good look at our seats and make sure they are there for next week and cara and i are visualising that we will be sitting there a week from now. i am a bit late with my update today as it has been a really busy day in her room. the surgeon actually just came in and removed her chest tube, so we will update you tomorrow morning again on the plan. also dr hanley paid us a visit today the first time since after the operation ( actually only mike saw him then ) and that was very nice of him. he explained to us what had happened as he had to do so much dissecting and that he is fairly confident that only many little lymphvessels have been damaged as opposed to actually the main thorasic duct. this assumption they make from her drainage pattern. so this is good news, although cara will have to stick to her diet of less than 5 gr of fat per day for the next 5 weeks ( and she loves her hearty food........)
have a good start into the week!