TUESADAY MORNING

What a great day yesterday! I don't even know where to start. Molly's day started very early with the wound team waking her up around 4:30am to begin dressing changes. Then the Grand rounds took place, then the wound rounds, then she went to radiology for a chest xray (standard procedure for people recovering from ARDS), in fact they now come get her and take her to wherever she needs to go, because she is "floor" status and can transport to these places instead of them bringing the portable equipment to her room. From then she had a little lunch which she ate pretty well. With lunch she had apple juice and she said that it was the first thing she had eaten/drank that actually tasted the way it is supposed to. Speaking of eating, the therapist was in and had Molly start to use the utensils to eat with. This will be slow and frustrating for her, but a step in helping her get stronger and feel more normal. Because of this and her able to eat food that required lots of chewing, she was also put on a regular diet and not the pureed soft stuff. While the food at the hospital is pretty good, (not great) any food that is pureed simply can't be good! So, this should go a long way in getting her to eating more. After eating, the thereapists (3) had her sit up in bed on her own and balance herself. she did great. then they had her transfer into the wheelchair from the bed and she did it mostly on her own, just with some assistance and them steadying her. Once in the wheelchair we were off for almost two hours. we went outside (it was gorgeous) and walked all around the courtyards (you can imagine how big they are with 5 hospitals, three floor clinical center, hotel, medical school, administration, etc.) We went into the Cardiovascular Hospital from the outside into the big atrium with seats and benches, water falls, and tropical trees and plants. There is a heart healthy cafe called the "atrium" (I thought this was clever if not funny). We shared a 4-berry fruit smoothie. It was really good. By this time Molly was starting to get a little tired and we headed back to the room. Once back in the room she got back into bed rested and had a lot of visitors. Phlebotomy, nutritionist, nephrology, surgical (you know, all the people in your life you want to see, haha) Anyway they all had did their thing, gave us updates, etc. The phlebotomist drew some blood and felt Molly was a little anemic which is not uncommon given everything she has been through and may account a little bit for her not feeling well on Sunday and feeling so drained. In fact she said that if her or I had a blood count like Molly's we would probably not even get up, but Molly has basically got used to feeling bad and tired, so it seems normal to her. Because of this they did decide to give her a unit of blood lat night. The nutritionist stopped by to give us really good news and that is that with Molly's calorie count intake that she was going to suggest removing the feeding tube, but since Sunday was not a good day with eating, she recommends keeping it in a few more days. This is great news as this means that Molly is getting close to eating enough to sustain herself without the need for the tube feeding. Plus, when the tube is gone she will feel more like eating because there will be no tube down her throat, and she will feel hungrier more often. So, should see the tube gone in the next few days. The nephrologist (kidney doctor) indicated that her kidney output continues to look good. We discussed doing nocturnal dialysis which means that she would go for 6 hours to the dialysis unit and have the dialysis done three times per week while she hopefully sleeps. This may be a great option once we hit rehab, providing she is still needing dialysis then. The big concerns would be if she could truly sleep, if she can, then we wont lose a day of rehab to feeling bad due to dialysis. The down side would be if she cannot sleep then she not only feels bad, but has no sleep. We are still thinking about it and may give it a try later this week or next week. But the good news is that her kidneys continue to show signs of waking up and getting closer to normal output. Last night output was 600cc's. along with this, Molly is starting to have more sensation like she needs to go, which is also a great sign. I continue to be amazed at how excited we and especially the nurses and doctors get about pee! What an odd and sick profession the medical profession is! (That must be why I like and get along with them so well.) The surgeons stopped by then and thought that Molly would benefit from a quick trip to the OR for a little debreedment of her stumps. The skin grafts on her thighs and the donor sites look great. 60% of her stumps look great, with the other 40% looking good, but would benefit from a "good scrubbing." While this could be done at the bedside, the surgeons felt it would be easier on Molly and them to make a quick trip to the OR to do it. This will be done later today. Again, working as a true team and making sure we are an important part of that team, they felt it was best to give Molly one big day of feeling bad instead of two. Meaning that the surgeons talked to dialysis and had them schedule Molly early in day today for dialysis, then take her to the OR, knowing that both of these will wear her out, so why not do them both on the same day and as early in the day as possible to giver her time to recover and rest so this evening and tomorrow will have a better chance of being another good day for her. So, today will be a big day and will probably not feel to well, but should be a big step in feeling better the rest of the week and the weekend and as we move towards next week and hopefully get her stumps grafted. We still have a lot to talk about, as the requests to speak, write a book, share her/our story/testimony, keep coming in. This, along with, we are now getting to the point of needing to start looking for a rehab center close to home, a prosthetists, and just regular life stuff will keep us quite busy with things to talk about. She mentioned yesterday as a good anicdote for our book "Breakfast? Never, and lunch and dinner always warmed up." As she gets interupted so often with "we need to take you to this", "we need blood for that", "let us poke you with her", "how does this feel" and "take this", that she never gets to eat when her meals come, so they always need warmed up. Now that I think about it, pureed hospital food that has been warmed up. No wonder she hasn't wanted to eat! Going hungry probably isn't a bad choice. BIG PICTURE, we continue to move forward and keep making steps in the right direction. Probably will be looking at 2-3 more surgeries, another week until grafting for her stumps, 2 weeks for the grafts to "take" and then 2 weeks of acute rehab. Then we should be able to get back to O - H - I - O!!!!!! Then we will be looking at 3-5 weeks of acute rehab, then return home with several weeks of home health, many many weeks of outpatient therapy, then get fitted for prosthetics and start therapy and training all over again to learn how to use her new legs. The great thing about all this, outside of the few remaing surgeries, this is all REHAB stuff and no longer looking at recovery. WooooHoooo!

SPECIFIC PRAY NEEDS

• Continued healing of kidneys, voice, hands & fingers, wounds
• Overall strength
• Spirits (hers and mine)
• Safe travel for friends and family
• Wisdom to make good decisions about our new future
• The unbelievable amount of trauma patients in general, but specifically those with similar illnesses to Molly's and their families.

God Bless you all!

Love,

Jamey & Molly