I received this news from Rosemary and Jody from COTA today.
Sharon
—————————-
I just spoke with Teresa, Angel’s host mother, who was at the hospital with him. He is doing fine. He was moved out of the ICU yesterday and is in a regular room. He is having minimal pain, which is being controlled with tylenol with codeine. His biggest complaint is the IV!! He is on a liquid diet, but did have some mashed potatoes and gravy and a strawberry smoothie tonight. He is able to get up and walk with no problem. He spoke with his mother today.
They have not given any information to Teresa yet about when he will go home. We are thinking it is because he is still receiving IV antibiotics. Hopefully we will know more tomorrow.
That’s the news for the day!
In a message dated 08/06/08 19:01:54 Eastern Daylight Time, green71957 writes:
Dear Sharon
This information is coming from Lexington, KY then through me in London, England and onto you in Guatemala. What a world we live in!
Angel’s surgery went well. It took over 6 hours and he spent the night in ICU at the hospital. The surgeon did a metal plate and a bone graft from Angel’s hip, which is the source of most of his pain, since bone is a painful site to heal from surgically. His host family is visiting as often as they can, since they live an hour from the hospital. My information is 24 hours old, so I will ask Rosemary, our director, to update us all by pressing “reply all.”
The next few weeks will find us being carefully observing Angel’s surgical site for infection, and keeping his pain under control. He is very stoic and rarely asked for pain meds even after oral surgery so I think he will do fine.
Please let his family know how he is doing. Our wonderful COTA dentist has casted Angel for an upper dental bridge to replace the front teeth that had to be surgically removed due to infection in the roots. We had to remove any diseased teeth before surgery in order to insure that the bone graft would not get infected. Angel’s case seems simple on the surface but due to the extent of his dental infection, the bullet fragments in his lower jaw and the erosion of healthy bone over the last few years, it has been interesting. The oral surgeon removed 7 infected teeth and our volunteer dentist filled just about every thing else that was left!
More as soon as I know it.
*Sharon, you are welcome to post this to MF since I know some of the supporters have asked about him.
Jody Greenlee, RN
Health Care Coordinator
Board President
Children of the Americas
www.childrenoftheamericas.org
