Wow! He can jump...a little

Last ten days have been so busy. First and most important, Andrew is done with the wound vac. It was an amazing moment. The nurse with wonund team was also the nurse who was with him in surgery the first day. We reflected on his journey. It is amazing. Andrew feel so free not to have the machine to pack around. The skin graft in the front is good enough that I stopped putting a dressing on it. The back wound is coming along. Andrew's continues to gain strength. Andrew went with his friends to the arcade. He even bowled. It is a concern whenever he goes out. People don't realize that he is still recovering even though he looks so good. One of the neighborhood boys slapped him on the back. I cringed when he told me. We can't keep him in a bubble, can we? Andrew goes to his weekly church activities. He played racket ball. It is the one night of the week that he can do things that the doctor probably woundn't approved of. The most difficult thing for Andrew right now is the nerve pain. He has had it from the start. Nights are the worst. We are not sleeping much. We have an apt. with the pain clinic in March. Hopefully, they will have some ideas about his pain. The pain is coming from the spine where he lost several transverse processes. It radiates up and down his leg and is excruciating. Not fun! Andrew is back to his starting weight. He has also gained a lot of muscle in his upper body. Two more steps forward. Yesterday, Andrew ran four steps. Then he showed me how high he can jump. Not very high but, impressive nonetheless! At PT he is lifting 60 pds with his legs instead of 20. Then they put him on the treadmill and turned it on to a pretty fast pace. I had to turn my head because it made me nervous to watch. But he continues to move forward. We stopped at the school to look into putting him into a couple of classes the last term. We are so grateful that we are to this point. Sometimes Andrew wonders about the future. I remind him that nothing is guaranteed in this life. If you work hard and have faith, the sky is the limit. He really enjoyed seeing Svindall from the Olympics. It you don't know, Svindall came back from a serious trauma (ski crash) and took the gold medal in the downhill. People with this kind of courage are very special and inspirational! Keeping up hope is so important in a recovery. When we feel discouraged we think about how far we have come. We also know that we can and will conquer this!