Report from Steve (with photo)

I just got this email from Steve:

"Shea is doing well this am she has a slight fever and a scratched cornea in her good eye other than that she is hanging in there. She is so thankful for getting thru this surgery. Pray that no infection sets in."

Steve also said I could post this pic...

Success!

The surgery took twice as long as expected, but the doctors feel this may be the last major surgery! Steve and Susan still have not seen Shea but they have talked to the doctors and the report was that the surgery went better than they had even hoped for.

Susan says there will not be any more posts tonight, but we will keep you up to date tomorrow.

Thanks to all for all of your thoughts and prayers.


David Pippenger

Surgery Update

Susan just called with an update:

The surgery is still ongoing but so far all news is good. Her blood pressure is great and they are now working on getting the bone from her hip for the grafts in her teeth.

They are removing a lot of plates and screws which we hope will result in less pain for Shea.

They have raised her left eye a full centimeter and have injected her own blood and stem cells into the bone of the upper jaw to speed healing. They still don't know whether they are going to break her lower jaw, since they don't want to affect her singing.

Dr. Mills came out and said that Shea has the absolute very best doctors in the world for this surgery. He stated that if he was in an accident, these would be the doctors he would hope for.

Surgery Tuesday Morning

Thanks so much for all the encouraging comments on the blog. At dinner tonight, Shea said that she wasn't at all nervous about the surgery tomorrow. "Should I be?" she said, and we all laughed. The outpouring of love and prayers is truly carrying all of us, and we are actually excited about tomorrow.

We had a pre-op appointment with Dr. Nunn last week, and he explained all the procedures they will be performing. Rebreaking the cheek bone, grafting bone from Shea's hip to use above her front gums, breaking both sides of her jaw, pulling out her chin, raising the left eye a little more and maybe even a brow lift! Just what you want when you're twenty! Shea asked Dr. Nunn if anything could be done for the pain in her jaw. He had another x-ray done of her skull and saw a metal plate that the first surgeon had used to hold her crushed jaw together. At this point, the plate has no purpose and is hitting Shea's jaw every time she closes her mouth. Dr. Nunn said that it hurt him to even look at her x-ray. He thinks he can remove it, but there is the concern that bone has grown around the plate.

Please pray that all will go as planned and that Dr. Nunn, Dr. McKay and Dr. Mills will be absolutely amazed at the miraculous results of this surgery.

We love and appreciate all of you --

The Hickoks