Sorry the updates have dwindled a bit here over the past few days - we promise to be better and appreciate all of your concern, it really means the world to us. Dad's hanging in there, but we'd be lying if we said everything was fine. He's in the thick of it right now as far as his recovery goes. He's had some issues with his heart and blood pressure, as well as trouble trying to regulate and slow his breathing. He still has one of his chest tubes in to drain fluid but he did have the epidural and catheter removed over the weekend which was great. Last night he was able to walk to for a bit, but it totally wears him out. He's also extremely nautious from some of the anti-rejection medications but he desparately needs to eat high protein/fat foods to try to build up some of the muscle that he's lost over the past 10 days (and he didn't have a lot to begin with.)
I had told my Dad that my friend Doug Akagi, who had a double lung transplant at the U a few months ago, wrote in his blog that if you had asked him while he was recovering in the hospital if he would do it all over again, he would say no. He was that miserable and the recovery was that difficult. Yesterday, between short, labored breaths, he said "remember when your friend wrote that? I'm there." Just breaks my heart, because I know how incredibly grateful he is for this gift of life and how overwhelmed he's been with gratitude, so for him to even hint at the fact that this is that difficult for him is so hard to hear.
A few of us commented last week on how we noticed how nurturing he has been with this new lung - a lot like a new mother is with her newborn, aware of every breath they're taking or not taking at all hours of the day . You'll be sitting there talking to him and out of the blue he'll ask "what's ... my ... oxygen ... at?" and then he'll close his eyes and try to take a deep breath and slow down. Can you imagine how odd that would feel, to be able to actually have control over the organ that was just transplanted into your body? No wonder he's probably been a little anxious and breathing to fast. It's important for him to rest and relax, but we also know that your visits are important to him as well. We've found that it's great for him to just have one or two people in his room, sitting out of his line of vision most of the time and not trying to talk a whole lot to him but just reading or watching tv with him and helping to get him anything he needs. We love you all so much and appreciate your continued prayers.
p.s. Last report on Diane was that she was recovering well from her surgery a few days ago, had her breathing tube taken out and was up walking around on the 5th floor as well. Dad told me yesterday that he's looking forward to meeting her - hopefully in the hall one of these days :)
