Sunday, March 1, 2009

Unkel Mike's Operation


I got a note today from Jason who is the son of our own UnkleMike. I did a little pickup work and built a left handed tone circuit for him just last week. Mike has been waiting a long time for a double lung transplant. I'm not going to post the entire thing but here is an abridged version.

If you didn't receive the first email, this is Jason, Mike's son. I will be typing up some updates for you until dad is able to use a computer again. The transplant happened at about 1:00 am Thursday morning and was finished at about 10:40 am. Everything went well as expected! When we first came in to see him around 1:00 pm on Thursday, he was pretty incoherent but he was able to twitch and move his eyes underneath his eyelids. You should have seen all the needles and tubes coming out of him...quite the site. Yesterday was an enormous day of recovery for him. He went from simply being awake and alert again, to sitting up in a chair later in the day, to actually eating meatloaf and mashed potatoes for supper (which by the way was the first time he'd eaten since about noon on Wednesday). I came in to visit him earlier today and his color was better than I've ever seen it. His cheeks and nose are no longer the purplish color they used to be. Currently dad still has quite a few tubes in him, although I would say he's got about half as many in now as he did on Thursday....

...Dad's been keeping himself busy by thinking about what he wants to do when he gets out...I don't think I've ever seen this side of my dad...he's so ambitious! He told me he's looking forward to fishing and golfing again and wants to finally take my mom on their honeymoon (they never had one..it's been 25 years!). He said today that he thought he would be doing
more reading to keep himself busy but I guess he can't get comfortable because of all the tubes in him. If all goes well he could be out of the intensive care unit by tomorrow or Monday. Following that he will begin the long road to
rehabilitation. I'd like to thank everyone for being so supportive throughout this whole process. All of your prayers and thoughts have helped make this a reality finally. I know it's a huge burden off my mom's shoulders. I will try to keep everyone posted in the upcoming days as his recovery continues to progress. Again, thank you all and god bless!


So just remember Mike and wish him well. All his prayers have been answered but he's still got a long year ahead of him.

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