Thank-you

Thank-you all whom are praying for my brother and our family. I feel like I am on a roller coaster and I keep yelling stop, but no one will let me off! Some days I am way up, and other days way down. Yesterday was a fantastic day, I was able to talk to my brother on the phone, he could speak over his trach tube and he understood what I was saying, and when he spoke back to me it was clear and corheirent. Now I am riding down the hill, to fast and I want off. Mike spiked a fever last night, and today does not know his wife, my parents, and his nurse is me, he keeps calling her "Chris" (which is what he calls me-the only person who calls me Chris). He says he is in Mexico, when asked what city in Mexico we get "south Colorado". So needless to say he is not making any sense at all. He does not want to watch TV, he just stares at the ceiling. I knew this road our family is on would be long and hard, but it breaks my heart to see him doing so well one day and the next doing so poorly. He has a fever to and the doctors and nurses (on his new floor) do not seem concerned. We realize it is the holiday weekend, but a hospital is susposed to be open 24/7. My mom is a nurse, and she suspects a UTI, so test his urine for peets sake. If it comes back negitive then you have eliminated a cause to his "madness". If it positive then you can treat it and start getting him well again. It is so frustrating.
I will try to post again soon. Thank-you for the prayers and kind thoughts, they do mean so much to me and touch my heart, many times when I am down they bring me back up again.
Your in Friendship,
Christy

Mike Update

Hello All,

As I stated in my last post I would keep you updated as to Mike's progress. Each day is a new journey, that gives us hope. Yesterday was Mike's best day yet. Today a few baby steps backward, but tomarrow one leap forward we hope. Mike was given the chance to try breathing on his own yesterday with no vent support. He did great and was able to go 6 hours by himself. He was the most awake he has been this entire 9 days as well. That was both a blessing and a curse for us because he was trying to communicate with us, but we do not know what he was saying or motioning too. Everytime we leave the room he reaches for us too (that is tough)!

I was able to talk with him for the first time yesterday with him understanding me. He was very restless yesterday and he kept making terrible faces like he was in pain. I asked him if he was in to pain to squeeze my hand and he did not. I asked him if he was hot and he did squeeze my hand. My brother is always hot and sweats like a beast. So we got his room temp lowered and he seemed to do much better with that. The other great thing that happened yesterday was he cracked a half smile for the first time. A female co-worker came to visit Mike and he only had a sheet on and it was only coving him in the "import places" and she said "Mike are you trying to flash me?" and he cracked a half smile like he got the joke. We can see that our Mike is in "their" and wants to come out, but it is going to be a slow process. The doctors also told us yesterday that he will be in ICU for at least another two weeks. The long range plan is to move him to Mary Free Bed in Grand Rapids for a 3 month stay for intensive rehab. Then another 9 months of out patient re-hab. We are so grateful for the progress he has made, and we know he is a fighter and will contiue to fight to get well. We thank everyone who has said a prayer for him, and ask if you can to keep praying for him. We know that God is making a diffrence and we know that God can heal Mike, in His own time. I will post again the end of next week as I will be seeing him again then. I have to start back to work this week, so I am not as free to see him as I was before.

Thank-you,

Christy

Continued Prayer

To all of you whom have been praying for my brother I cannot thank-you enough. It means so much to our family that complete strangers would take time to pray for someone they do not know personally. I have been printing out your post and giving them to Mike's wife and my parents to read.

The prayers are working! The doctors are calling Mike the miracle man. He is opening his eyes for brief periods of time and he can do commands like squeeze your wife hand. He has movement in three of his extremities, but his left arm does not move at all. He gives the thumbs up he can feel it, but still no movement. He had a halo put on today to secure his two broken vertibra in his neck. Now we call him our "angel". He will have to wear that for 90 days. He is still on a vent that breathes for him. Tomarrow they are taking him off of all of the sedititves to see what happens. Please pray he tolerates it. I guess from what we hear when you get woke up and you are on a vent it feels like you are breathing through a straw and you get the sensation you are sufficating, when you really are getting enough oyxgen.

God has been so good to our family these last few days and we owe Him all of the Glory!

Thank-you again from the bottom of my heart. <3

If you would like to read daily updates on Mike you can go to:www.carepages.com enter (uppercase) MIKETISDALE (no spaces) in the box.

Christy