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Update 9:45 p.m. Thursday, February 21

Norma had another good day. She had the occupational therapist come in. They sat and he asked her some questions. He had her doing "touch my finger, touch your nose." One of the funniest things was the therapist had her sitting in her chair with her gown on and he's saying all these things like "try to touch my finger" and "touch your nose, "touch your knee", "do you feel this when I touch you here" and we're watching her. Of course, she has nothing on under her gown and basically she's listening to all the instructions. He turns to us and kind of smiles and he says, "This phrase took me 20 years to come up with." and the phrase is "toes to your nose". Now he wanted her to simply curl her toes toward her nose and she just sat there and didn't respond and then he said, "Let's try this again - toes to your nose." She sat there and kind of got a little grin on her face. He said, Can you do that?" She kind of smiled and she said "Not unless everyone leaves the room." I hope you guys get it. In other words, "I can touch my toes to my nose. I can raise my leg to get it there and I've got nothing on under my gown." We just roared. She's coming along good.

I sent some pictures and one of them is Norma with nieces and nephews. The other is one of the helicopter headed for a hole in the sky and I thought this was an opening in the sky to get her to the hospital or God was asking her to come home. When I saw this, it just captured me in the moment.

Tomorrow morning (Friday) will be kind of a big day. She's getting the EVD (External Ventricular Drain), that they first put in her head back when she want to Joliet on an emergency basis, removed. It draws the fluids out of her head. They clamped that off about 48 hours ago and they want to see if the pressure in her head stays consistent by having that drain clamped off. She'll go in tomorrow (Friday) about 5:00 a.m. to have a CAT scan done and that will measure against the CAT scan done 48 hours ago. If that's consistent, then their plan will be to remove the EVD which will be fantastic. She'll have more mobility and won't have to be tied down as much.

If it doesn't work and the pressures are increasing, she will have to undergo a 45 minute surgery that will actually put in some kind of shunt which will go in her head where the fluids would be draining and it comes down around behind her right ear. It would leave a lump on her head which would probably be permanent. The shunt will go down in through/towards her stomach area - not in the stomach directly but on the outside of the stomach/abdomen where fluids collect constantly for everybody. These fluids would be absorbed back into her stomach and digestive system to take them out of the body. That would be a permanent deal. We're praying for Option #1 and hope it goes well and it will come out and not be permanent.

We asked the question, "If it doesn't work, can't we wait another couple of days and reclamp this thing off and remeasure it?" They said there are other possibilities that she'll start getting infections and they really want to get their patients up and moving and the longer they keep them in bed, the harder it is to get them rehabilitated. Anyhow, we're all keeping our sense of humor. I did take one picture with Eric's help which we're not going to send. We blew up one of those rubber gloves and put it next to Norma's head while she was sleeping with her head back and her mouth open and it does look a little bit like a chicken. But we're going to pass on that for now because when she does get back to full strength, I don't want her whupping on me.

So, we love everybody. Thanks for the prayers and all the support. You're all my miracles and we can't thank everybody enough for everything you're doing. I want to thank each of you individually. You all know who you are that have touched us. I mean I go back to some of my rocks and pillars and that's my Aurora boy group that I went all the way through school with and that's Mike Mudry, Pete Andrews, Dave Augustine, Dave Petersohn and their lovely spouses Sue, Kathy, Claire and Sally and then one of our Aurora boy friends helping us from heaven above Jerry Powers and Donna. Again, thank to the NML family and the Chalkboard family and extended family and friends. It has been overwhelming.　

Day 15 - Friday, February 22, 2008

4:00 p.m. on Friday - I just talked to Ken and he said that Norma ended up having Option 1 which is what they wanted. They had her up walking a bit but she got kind of dizzy. Her blood pressure dropped a little too much. They have her on medication to keep her blood pressure about 100/50. She's been tired all day and is resting.

From Ken:  With God and your prayers and love and support - we've come along way baby!