I'm Back

Hello again!

After a brief hiatus from this blog, I am back. My wife has done an amazing job of keeping up with posts and keeping everybody posted. Each day since the surgery, I have been adding little activities to my daily routine in order to get back to full strength. This is my new activity today.

As you might imagine I have a lot of thoughts and feelings going through my mind. It has been a rollercoaster of a week since the transplant. I could go on for pages and pages about everything that has happened. Which I will. Just not today. My guess is that over the next several weeks I will look back and reflect on what has happened. For now thought, we will start with the present.

I am still in the hospital right now, and will be here at least one more night. My numbers dropped again today which is great news, and I am waiting for an ultrasound at some time today. At this point M and I have no expectations as to when we will get to go home. The doctors are leaning on the side of caution and we are fine with that. Each day my numbers drop, gets us closer to going home.

As for me, I am feeling good. Physically there is still a considerable amount pain. I am up and out of bed more and more each day, walking the hallways and doing my physical therapy. Some nerves in my left arm were damaged during the surgery which has resulted in the loss of feeling in two fingers and a thumb. I am in Occupational therapy for that and I should regain full feeling in a few weeks. The pain is manageable during the day, but I usually need some pain killers to get through the night.

Mentally and emotionally I am doing very well. I am happy, relieved that I have finally gotten my transplant, and my wife and I can get on with our lives. Of course it will be several months before I am physically back to full strength. Just having the weight of the transplant off our shoulders makes a world a difference. We are now focusing on future vacations, time with family and friends and our long life together. We are not out of the woods yet, but we can see the clearing ahead.

I would like to send a very special thank you to so many people. First and foremost my wife, my rock. Not only has she done an amazing job keeping up with the blog but she has also helped me in and out of bed several times, gotten me food, picked up my nurse's call button too many times to count and made sure that I am doing everything that I need to be doing. That only touches the surface of everything she has done. I could go on and on. She has done all of this and only left the hospital twice since we got here (both times to take a yoga class at a studio down the street from the hospital).

Thank you to all who have sent cards, emails, texts, phone calls, pictures, food, bears, dancing pelicans, and overall positive thoughts. Thank you to all of you who have come by to visit before, during and after the surgery. Thank you to everyone for your words of support and encouragement and most importantly your prayers. There is no doubt that what has happened to me has been a God thing. I am still here because He wants me to be. I am also sure that all the prayers from everyone had a big influence on that decision. I feel like now that I have survived this, I owe God and everyone who has been praying for me. The best way I can think of doing that is by living my life intentionally and purposefully.

Well that is about all for now. Typing with only 7 working fingers is a little tricky and the hospital walls do not exactly cultivate words of inspiration. Stay tuned for the next several weeks as I look back at all the amazing events and people that I have experienced over the last week as well as looking forward to the years I now have ahead of me.

In the mean time let me leave you with this.

As I now officially begin to look forward to my third chance at life, I have spent a lot of time in thought and prayer as to what it should look like. I do not have a definite answer yet, but there is one thing that I know for sure. What ever it does look like, I am going to make every moment count.