Nov 8th - Happy Birthday Doug

Today is our oldest son's birthday. He is 46 today.

We are still in St. Louis. They are talking about the possibility of Kathy being released tomorrow, but I hope they wait until Sunday. Actually I thought it wouldn't be until Monday. She is doing well. I'm not sure how many laps she made around the floor today. I was with her for 3 of them and I wasn't here when the physical therapist had her walking and stepping up and down on a step this morning.

Yesterday was the first they allowed her to have even water/tea by mouth. This evening she is to "feast" on cream of chicken soup and sherbet. If all goes well she will get some solid food tomorrow.

Later this evening her IV's come out and she will take pain meds orally. (She hasn't been taking a lot of them. She controls the morphine and I don't think she has hit it for some time. They have given her some type of Acetaminophen/Ibuprofen through the IV, she likes it. It must be some type of time delay stuff because they dump the entire little bottle of it into the IV stream in just a few minutes and then she doesn't get the next bottle for at least 6 hours.

Kelsey & Lydia came for a visit Wednesday afternoon and stayed overnight. We waited until the cafeteria in this unit closed so we had to walk the half mile over to the main cafeteria. The walk consists of going through many enclosed walkways between buildings. Lydia thought they were just great.

One of the buildings that we went through has glass walls that slope outward. We were on the 2nd or 3rd floor level when we passed through it. Lydia is looking down at a lighted courtyard with people walking through it.

The device hanging off the end of the bed is a small pump that inflates and deflates "wraps" on Kathy's lower legs. They had it off during the day and Lydia was fascinated by the hoses. She just knew they had to connect somewhere and was going to work with them until she got them plugged into something. Kelsey is helping her attach the hoses to the wraps.

Thanks for your prayers, and thank you Lord for answering them.

May God bless you and yours.