For those of you who have been keeping up with the story of my friend Liz Carter, I thought I should provide another update here. I had put this in a comment in a previous post, but Margaret Woda suggested that a new post was in order, so here you go...
I spoke with Liz's husband Bill for about 15-20 minutes Sunday afternoon, and he said that Liz's new lungs and liver continue to function extremely well. She started on solid food about a week ago so she's receiving more nourishment, which is apparently a huge positive step with liver transplants.
There was initially some concern with her vocal chords, because her voice was gravelly, and it turned out that one side was immobile, following some apparent minor stroke activity after the surgery. This is now something that they think may have happened before the surgery, but it was just never caught until now.
One of her arms and one of her legs (on opposite sides) were a concern at one point, because the mobility was around 10%. According to Bill, this mobility is improving "pretty much on a daily basis" and they had her up and walking around a little bit, too. Needless to say, there's a long road ahead when it comes to physical therapy, but Liz is a tough cookie, and I'm sure it will be fine.
The strokes themselves don't appear to have left any irreparable damage, and Liz hasn't needed any supplemental oxygen at all for quite some time now, because her oxygen levels are completely normal (95-97% range). Obviously, all of this is very encouraging. They had a minor setback with one of the medications, possibly because of the balance between pain killers, anti rejection drugs, etc., but that was only problematic for a day or two.
Bill also mentioned that Liz loves to see people, so if you know Liz and want to visit her, she's at St. Luke's Hospital, just south of downtown Houston. She's in a normal room (i.e. not in ICU), so just check regular visiting hours. She can't receive flowers/plants because the soil contains bacteria that could cause infection. We may be traveling to Houston to see family soon - if so, I will make sure to see my friend while we're there. :)
It sounded like there's a reasonably good chance that she will be going home from the hospital sometime in the next couple of weeks.
THANK YOU for your continued prayers. This is nothing short of a miracle that she got the needed organs (lots of matching has to occur - tissue, blood type, size, etc.) and that she's doing this well so far.
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