Paul's recovery continues..

For our friends and family who are following Paul's recovery we are posting from Jamie's blog to keep everyone updated.
Jamie and Kirk are amazing to find the time to keep everyone updated and we are so grateful for their posts.
Paul's recovery is a miricle and blessing.

Jamie wrote:
Wednesday and Thursday were slow recovery days. It felt like little to no progress was being made. He was retaining fluid from being on the heart-lung bypass machine and the only way to get it off would be through his dialysis because he had not started urinating again. Thursday night the fluid starting coming off and by Friday morning he started urinating again. We were so happy. Friday turned out to be a great day with a few tubes being removed so that Paul’s body could start doing things on its own again. Soon after his breathing tube came out we snapped this photo…

Unfortunately, immediately following the removal of the ventilator tube his blood work came back poor so they had to put him on a high-flow nasal cannula for oxygen (which he hated!). However, even with the cannula taped down to his cheeks it wouldn’t stay in his nose because his chubby cheeks protrude farther out from his face than his little nose! It was all too funny. Luckily his night nurse recognized that he didn’t need it and removed it later that evening.
Snapped this shot of those big ol’ cheeks…

By this morning we were able to take him out of bed and hold him. Still tricky to do with all his tubing and he is still on 24 hour dialysis so we can’t walk him around quite yet but we can get him out of bed and hold him…

After watching a little football he fell right asleep…

Speaking of watching football he LOVES it! His favorite teams seem to be any that wear red uniforms (Ohio State, Wisconsin, Utah, etc.). This kid is addicted. He will fall asleep watching and then wake up watch a little more and fall back asleep again. We figure it is as good as us jumping around and entertaining him while he is stuck in bed only the TV doesn’t get tired.

If things stay on track and he continues to do well he should be out of the ICU sometime early next week and then we will be able to start whittling away on the other issues he is having while we are inpatient. We are so pleased with his progress so far. Thanks to all our friends and family for their continued prayers and support!