A Prayer Shawl

Tuesday was a tough day. It started with Andrew hearing that he will leave on Friday. We take that with a grain of salt. There are a lot of different people who have to weigh in on that decision. He just didn't feel very good. He suffered through his therapy classes. His book worked looked so good today. His hand writing is as good as it ever was. So we were happy. I finally had a moment to dry my hair. I had finished half my head when Nicole W. came in and said that I have visitors. I reluctantly went out to see who it was. It was Andrew's principal, asst. principal and Mr. Brown, his counselor. We had a nice visit. Then I took them to visit Andrew. It is great to have so much support from the family, church, community and school. After classes he started to feel sick again. Dr. Downey came by to talk about a couple things. All along he has compared Andrew to a severe burn patient. His system has been through that kind of shock. He called it hyper metabolic. It takes a good amount of time for the body to settle down after a major shock. It kind of reminded me of my hyper thyroid. Your heart acts like it is on a treadmill 24/7. Later in the afternoon, Ariel came by. It was decided that they needed to put an NG tube in to suction out his stomach. It was not fun. So he was stuck to his bed for a time. Kristin came by to give his hair a spruce up. She did a great job and it made him happy. Wow! I can't believe the stories that I hear up here. The mother of the missionary who is next door to Andrew, shared a bit with me. They have had to quit their jobs for their son. They had jobs that required traveling. So she and her husband are basically unemployed. She has put it in God's hands. Someone said to me "how can you continue to do what you're doing?". What they don't understand is that when it is your child, you do what needs to be done. It is not a burden to serve a loved one. While I was at dinner, Trevor and his dad came by. They brought something really cool. It is a prayer shawl from St. Joan of Arc Church in Ohio. It came with a letter from the Women's Guild. They started doing this five years ago. Many prayers and blessings are knitted into every shawl. We thought it was a really nice gift. I showed it to a couple of PCMC chaplains. They really liked it too! So thank you so much. It was very thoughtful and useful. Tonight Andrew is pretty subdued. It is hard to rehabilitate when you stomach feels icky. Hopefully we will start to make headway on this problem. We know that he will recover and just have to be very patient. Andrew doesn't really get how far he has come. He is a little more impatient. Tonight, Dr. Downey came in to visit Andrew. I can't believe what wonderful doctors we have. He wanted to check on him before leaving. Then he got a call that will keep him here for some time. I found out that I have an 8:00 meeting with a home rehab group. I don't know who decided on 8:00 a.m.! Early to bed for me!! They will change Andrew's wound vacs tomorrow.