1/2 - On the ninth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

a relatively quiet day.

Most of my updates today are coming from Jim, who was here the bulk of the day, and there's not much to report. We may be reaching the end of treatment in the Trauma ICU here. All of his systems continue to improve, and he only clotted up the CVVH once today.  Jim made this yesterday, and I laughed out loud:

Once everything is stable, we will probably be moving to another part of the hospital, but I'm not sure which. Other than that, they're still working on getting Sam to be the official owner of the piece of skull that is his in the first place. They are convinced it will be available for surgery on Monday. However, Jim got the impression that it might get bumped until Sam no longer needs dialysis at all. I'm guessing that they really don't want any heparin running through him after a big surgical procedure. That would be my preference as well. Also, Jim and I will be taking classes on how to care for the trach. It's standard procedure to train all parents whose kids have them. Also, some of the docs seem a little disappointed that he's not responding more. We believe these things will surface more in time and that a lot more can happen when he gets to rehab. We refuse to live in the "What Ifs". It puts us in a dark place, and that is good for no one. And other than those few things, Sam's day was quiet. Quiet is good.

If you saw my Facebook post, today was "The Day of Sarah". We have all had the least Christmassy Christmas and break ever, so we did a lot of things together. We started by gorging ourselves at the Cheesecake Factory after which we checked out 3 stores at the mall.  After deciding there were way too many people, all of whom irritated us, we went to Ulta, procured some things, and headed off to get a pedicure. At the end while we were drying, a student of mine and her mom came in. We filled them in on all of the latest Sam info, and my student filled me in on some student escapades during my absence. Instead of going straight home, we made an obligatory stop at Starbucks. It was a very good day, and Sarah is very fun to hang out with. I'm glad we were able to grab some time together for fun and relaxation before she starts back to school next week. 

Thank you for your prayers for Sam's continued improvement, as well as for peace and comfort for a friend of ours who lost his father yesterday after battling illness, and LeAnn, and her mom as she works through her own health challenges. 

After our fun day, Sarah got a little sad when she got the mail. Sam received a postcard inviting him to a coin show, one of his obsessions in the last few years. This pic is from a couple of years ago with the quarters collection.