2 families receive 'Christmas miracle' with new chance at life | ksl.com

We were able to see Dad for a minute around 9:45 in the ICU before heading home to try to get some sleep. He was still sedated then, but I just spoke with his nurse and she said that he had responded to questions by wiggling his toes and squeezing hands just now, which is great. He's still on the respirator and will be throughout the night and sedated as well. His blood pressure is still pretty low so they're watching that closely. This is all related to a complication that went wrong during the surgery that had nothing to do with the transplant. The doctors told us that the transplant recovery is secondary to him recovering from what went wrong with his heart during surgery.

Here's the story that ran on KSL TV tonight about the transplant:

2 families receive 'Christmas miracle' with new chance at life | ksl.com

KSL News Story

Watch or record the 10pm KSL News tonight - they're doing a story on the transplant

Going on 8 1/2 hours in surgery

Still waiting for word that the surgery's over. He had to be put in a bypass machine earlier and is now off. They're just waiting for the lung to work on its own before they can begin to close him up. Hang in there Dad.

Still waiting ...

The nurses just called and said things are going well, they're still sewing the lung in and that they'll give us another update in an hour and a half.

A new lung for Christmas!

Dads in surgery as we speak and getting a new lung. He got the call last night around 7pm and we didn't know for sure if it would actually happen until 9am this morning. We're all here waiting for him to come out of surgery - probably til at least 1-3pm. If all goes well, he'll be in the surgical ICU for a couple of days and then he'll be moved back up to the transplant floor for at least another 5-7 days after that. He's got quite a rough road ahead of him, even if everything goes perfectly. We're so very grateful for all of the love and support we feel from our family and friends. We love you all so much! Our hearts are also full with thoughts of the donor's family and what they must be going through right now. We hope and pray that they know how incredibly grateful we are for this amazing gift. Stay tuned!