Sunday afternoon

Many of you have asked about Sawyer so I wanted to post a picture for you. In this one he is about 3hrs old and just got eye slime put on by the nurse, but he's still my boy!

Today I took the girls to see Katie for the first time. I know how many of you were praying so, God must have decided that it was better for Katie not to interact with the girls at all. She slept the entire time. We started off by going to church, which was great, but also weird. I'm the worship leader at Two Rivers, but this morning I sat in the audience while a friend named Lynn filled in. He did wonderful, but it was weird. The girls had a great time seeing all their friends and it really felt like normal just being there (other than my weirdness).

So right after church we went to the hospital.....and watched Katie sleep. I was able to show the girls the staples in her head, the machines that are giving her her food, and the machine that is giving her her meds. Aubree was interested, but Tayler was content to sit back and just observe. Before we left we all gathered round Katie and laid our hands on her and prayed. I tell you nothing is better than seeing childlike faith lived out in your kids prayers. We have taught our kids to pray big prayers, as they tend to actually believe that God will come through, and it's fun to hear them. Things like, "help mommy get better so she can come home today". I promise you, when kids pray, things happen. All in all it was a good experience and the girls left better off than when they came.

Now, it's not too surprising that Katie was really tired. The last really big day we had with her was last Sunday. If you look back on the blog you will see that there was a ton of interaction. So, after her big day, she proceeded to sleep from Sunday evening clear until Tuesday afternoon. Well, yesterday was even bigger than a week ago. She was out of bed three different times, walked at least 75 feet and had a number of prolonged interactions with family and friends. So, my guess is that she will be out until sometime Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

Dr. Carlstrom was a little concerned that she would not wake up for the girls so he ordered another CT scan, which I am happy to say is showing good improvement. The swelling is going down, and the hemorrhage is improving (I assume that means the blood is dissipating). So she really is just tired and not getting worse. Also, her blood pressure and fever persist, but are being controlled nicely by meds.

My hope/prayer is that by the end of the week she could be moved to the rehab wing of the hospital. Methodist has a wonderful rehab called, Younkers Rehab, and everyone who knows about this stuff says that is the place you want to be. It's also nice that it's part of the same hospital system so her care level should stay high.

One thing to pray for is my work. My boss has been great (he actually threatened to fire me if I showed up at work), and my co-workers are doing a great job covering my business, but now that my sugar-momma is laid up, I will probably actually have to get to work. My hope is to return part time the week of the 11th. The girls start school that week so it will probably work best to wait until then.

I also wanted to say a special thanks to my brother Rex and his wife Shawna and kids. They came up this last Friday from Topeka, KS, and basically took over the house for the weekend. Shawna took all of the night feedings for Sawyer so that Karen and I could rest, and Rex pretty much took the day feedings. Shawna also took the girls shopping and together they made sure we all ate well. So, we had a great weekend with the family as their kids get along great with our kids.