"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
--Jeremiah 29:11

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Our little Irishman

Just in time for St. Patrick's Day. . .


Connie has become quite the little adventurer when left to his own devices. Greg went out to get the mail the other day and when he tried to come back in the house, Connie had locked all the doors! He also has learned how to feed Belle and feeds her no less than 5 times a day. That's okay, though, because he only gives her a morsel or two each time.

In other news, Grandpa is recovering well other than the delusional state that the pain meds put him in. His incision goes from his shoulderblades to his tailbone! All the therapists say he's advanced! Hopefully he'll be coming home by early next week.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Connie and Grandpa Update

Grandpa is in quite a bit of pain but they are keeping him pretty heavily dosed with pain meds. He is still in ICU and expected to be until tomorrow. Crazy that he's in the same unit as the shooter from the Illinois church!

Connie woke up as soon as I finished posting last night's post. Murphy's law, I guess. I gave up and had Greg take over at midnight. Greg said he woke up about 2 times overnight but went back to sleep quickly. Today he took a three hour nap! and is almost himself. He still sounds sick but we're crossing our fingers that he sleeps better tonight.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Grandpa is Out of Surgery and Connie just fell asleep

My dad's surgeon came out after 12 actual hours of operating and said that he was pleased with the outcome. Dad will be completely out of it tonight and since there are no ICU beds and that's where he would go after such a procedure, he's staying in recovery all night long and he's the only patient and has four nurses! How's that for patient:staff ratio? He said he stayed stable the entire length of the operation and could not be doing better. Praise God. Please continue to pray that as he awakens that his pain is able to be controlled and his recovery is smooth.

As for Conway, he did pretty fine this afternoon but this evening just couldn't settle. His breathing was more labored. Not sure if he couldn't sleep because of the steroid treatments or what, but he just didn't want to be in bed and we can't exactly let him cry and get worked up b/c he is unable to breathe when he gets like that. He finally fell asleep about 5 minutes ago (10:07pm) which is quite late for him. We're crossing our fingers that he sleeps peacefully all night and we don't end up having to take him in.

Croup

Connie woke up at 4:15 am today struggling to breathe. He had a horrible, barky cough so I quickly gave him an abuterol treatment. It seemed to make no difference whatsoever. He did calm down a bit to drink some milk and then about two hours later went back to sleep. When he woke up at 8:30 he got another treatment and sounded just as bad so I called the doctor and they said to bring him in since he was pulling a little around the ribs and laboring. I have never heard him sound so rough.

I took him in and Dr. Davis thinks it is croup and a sinusitus. He gave him an oral steroid, dexamethasone, in the office and wrote a script for Azythromycin for the sinus drainage. He said that if the treatments don't work within 20 minutes of giving it, to take him to the ER.

My dad is having a 10 hour back surgery today at SLU hospital so we'd appreciate all the prayers you could send on his behalf.