12/24 - Mid afternoon

Many of you have been waiting for this, so we won't make you wait any longer.  The surgery was a success, and Sam is the proud new owner of a tracheostomy and feeding tube. Additionally, his blood pressure seems to have come down, although some of the machines are being glitchy.  They're trying to get him all reattached to new stuff and detached from stuff he doesn't need anymore.  Thank you so much for your messages and posts about keeping him in prayer during surgery.  We are again back to the waiting game.  

This whole odyssey has been filled with God moments, and I wanted to share one that happened this afternoon while we were waiting for him to come back from surgery.  The nurse (Sarah) was talking to me about a patient from about a year ago.  She was a teenage girl who was T-boned by a drunk driver.  They had given a very poor prognosis, but her mom would not give up on her because she knew her daughter was still in there.  She decorated the whole room, and she played Indian music for her that she knew and loved.  Sarah was in the room at one point, and there had previously been no response from the girl. While the music was playing, she saw that her hand had formed in a mudras - one of the hand gestures used in this type of dance.  At that point, Sarah knew she was in there, too.  

TODAY as they were bringing Sam back to his room after surgery, that same girl had come back to visit everyone in the trauma ICU who had helped her.  She was walking and talking and hugging everyone. She was the girl given very little promise of recovery.  Sarah had not seen her since she left trauma, and we all knew that it was no accident that she chose today to visit.  We know that Sam is in there.  We just need to be patient until he wakes up. Thanks for waiting with us.