Done Adventuring..................

On Monday, we took Paul to his opthamologist appointment. The surgery done to correct the orbital did not accomplish what was needed and Paul's eye is still too far out of the eye socket. The pupil in his left eye is still dialated and the doctor said she can't really see in, which means Paul cannot see out very well either. There is still evidence of the hemorraging in his eye, so she will do a follow up exam in 2 months to retest his vision. All he was able to see was the big E on the eye chart. One other thing affecting the vision in this eye was the medication that is applied every 2 hours. I had to put some in that morning, as Paul's eyelid is now open 24 hours a day and his eye gets irritated easily. We are keeping an eye patch (waterproof bandage) over his eye to provide protection. So, again, it is too early to say that his vision is too poor for use. It appears it has been damaged, but to what extent remains to be seen. Jon and I were still very optimistic about his sight, since it is not totally lost. We have learned to be thankful for everything and so we still have reason to hope and have faith that God will answer our prayers. So many have been already and I won't limit God's goodness and mercy in any way.

The other great news about his eye is that the surgery to get Paul's eye back in line with his other eye and his iris lined up with his other eye should not be a big problem. This issue is totally correctable and the surgery will maybe even be put on hold, to continue to let Paul's face/nerve continue to heal. If the surgery is done before all healing takes place, it could over-correct the line up of Paul's eyes. We will need to see a specialist for that surgery and possibly a plastic surgeon to assist. We ask for prayers for guidance in this matter, so that we can find a very good surgeon to do this for Paul. We were also pleased that Paul had strength enough to walk in and out of the office, which was downtown, which meant walking from the parking deck to the main building and then up to the 5th floor. He was a real trooper and was never impatient with anything.

On Monday night, our neighbors, Barb and Bob Stackler brought dinner over and this was so sweet of them since it was raining very very hard. Later, my friends Sharon Nixon and Patty Palmquist brought food. (We enjoyed that food the next day and evening, which was a huge relief since we had another big day at Gwinnett Medical with Paul). The highlight of Monday was the opportunity to pray with my friends. Patty and Sharon stayed and we got Paul to come sit on the couch between Jon and me. Michael joined us also, as we said the Divine Mercy Chaplet and the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary in our front room, where we have a prayer area set up. Sharon blessed Paul with oil from the Padre Pio Center and then Patty, Sharon, Jon, Michael and I all stretched out our hands over Paul and prayed for his full recovery according to God's will. Paul sat quietly and seemed to understand this was all for him. When we first started the rosary, Paul was holding a rosary, but was not following along. After we started the second decade, he looked at my hands to see where we were and he found the bead we were on and he then followed the rest of the rosary with us. I always have held the crucifix in my left hand, and Paul copied me exactly as he held his rosary. He looked over at me and smiled so beautifully. He seemed very content as we said the rosary, and he even brought his leg up and crossed it as he always did when we prayed the rosary as a family. He was always pretty laid back when we prayed before and he would even sometimes fall asleep during the rosary. It's funny - the one time he had a perfect and understandable excuse for falling asleep while praying with us, he stayed wide awake. It has been a long time since we have been able to attend all the functions we used to - like the 5 mile rosary walk, our Renew group, my women's prayer group, teaching CCD, daily 6:30 am Mass - so it was wonderful to be able to prayer with our friends again. We are still really looking forward to going to the Lady of Lourdes Healing Mass this Saturday. Keep praying for this to happen. It will be so wonderful to be out with the people in our church again, not to mention the graces that will surely flow from this Mass.

Today, Paul had an endoscopy (I think that is the spelling) to determine if he has ulcers on his esophagus or possibly a yeast infection there. We were at the hospital day surgery office at 7:30 a.m. and the procedure was done at 9:30 a.m. The nurses were so kind, and after we talked to them for awhile, we found out that 3 of them were from Southern California, had worked in the hospital where my first son was born, and had attended high school where Jon did his student teaching. They all have sons, and no daughters, and they had sons who were Paul's age. So they really related to this whole thing and Paul got extra special care. It was determined that the muscle at the top of the stomach is too weak to hold the food down and they have given a prescription that will help the stomach process the food more quickly and will tighten that muscle until it does it on its own. It appears to be an easy fix for a very painful problem for Paul. Hopefully, he will not have all the problems with food coming up into his throat when he lays down. We are also going to rent a hospital bed so that his head can stay raised when he sleeps. He doesn't like sleeping on more than one pillow and pulls them out from underneath his head during the night, and then ends up with his problem causing him to have lots of trouble.

Tomorrow, he is back to Pathways for a reassessment of where he will need to start his therapies again. I am really looking forward to that, as he needs to get back on track with his speech, physical and occupational therapies.

Today, I was trying to get him to eat something, so offered a wide range of foods for him to try. He has started to eat a few more bites with each meal, but not enough to get off the feeding tube. Anyway, I got to the peach yogurt and I knew if I said the word yogurt he would say "no thank you". He always asks what I am offering him before he will eat something. So I told him that it was peach pudding in front of him. He said okay and then ate the spoonful. I asked if he wanted more and he said " that was good, but I am done adventuring". I can well imagine he is.

Paul has started to check his AOL Instant Messenger site almost every day. He answers some of the messages sent while he is on, but is easily distracted and doesn't always get back to people to respond to their questions. If any of Paul's friends are reading this, please keep sending him messages if you see he is logged on as it is really helpful for him to try to keep track of what is going on and then be able to respond. His answers may not make perfect sense, but most times you can understand what he is trying to say. He understands what you are saying, just has trouble getting his messages back out to you. Thank you so much for continuing to support him! It will be a long haul and his friends will play the most important part of his recovery.

EAch day I try to remember the reason for the day is God, with Jesus as my Light. All things are for the glory of God, which is all the purpose we need.
May God bless all that you do today.
Love,
Jon and Rebecca