Post Opt Day 4

Lacey has been able to get out of bed 4 times today, two of those times she walked over 100 feet. She is doing better day by day but continues to have alot of severe pain. She has gotten up a couple of times due to pain that radiates from her rib cage around to her back on both sides. She continues to press on and impress us all. God continues to give her peace and she is dealing quite well with yet another long hospitalization. She continues to tell us that all the pain is from the surgery and there has been no pancreas pain or the like.(which is rare because so many pancreatic patients have nerves that remain agitated for up to 2 years after the surgery and can cause some pancreas-like pain). But for Lacey there is no pancreas pain.
Because she has been able to get up and down, they did remove the catheter from her bladder today and that one one of many tubes that we are excited about removing. She has been sipping on some vitamin water and suckers, which continues to be sucked out of her stomach by the tube, but it helps her mouth! She remains on TPN for nutritional needs and the doctors are waiting on her bowels and intestines to wake up before taking out the NG tube and introducing food and liquids. The surgical team came by this morning and said all is going well and that Lacey is working hard, impressing them all. They said that nothin more could be done in addition to what she's doing. The medical staff here is great and consists of many doctors. Dr Sutherland, the chief, is such an encouragment to Lacey as he always has been, and the other docs are also very encouraging to her as she endures. They've given us no definite time from for discharge but i'm thinking it'll be at least another 7-10 days. Progress is being made daily and God's blessings cannot be described. Her insulin needs are minimal at this point and the docs think that her islet cells that were transplanted are already beginng to work. It will take time to know for sure how well the islet cells will work but all seems like she'll be insulin free in the weeks to come.
If anyone has any specific questions about her status or anything else that i may be overlooking please send me a comment on the blog or email me at jermnlace@hotmail.com. We have been taking some pictures and i hope to post them as soon as i buy some technological equipment that i forgot at home to transfer pics from camera to computer.