Paul's Update - 12/15/05

Dear Friends:

Paul was pretty quiet most of the day today. As I've said before, surgery takes a lot out of him. He seemed to be in a bit of pain so the nurse gave him some low doses of a Tylenol & oxycodone combination. That seems to help more than the morphine they were giving him last time. His trauma doctor came in today along with the nurse practitioner from the IMC unit. They seemed encouraged by Paul's progress to the point that they are talking about preparing him to go to Mount Vernon Rehab. It will be a few days before they actually do that but it is encouraging for us. Dr. Russo, who is the lead resident, also talked about the Coma Intervention program at Mount Vernon to encourage Paul's waking. Today they also inserted a device to help catch any blood clots that might form due to Paul's inactivity. That probably caused him to be even more uncomfortable than he was already! This device will be temporary until Paul is able to move around more. Tonight after he came back from the procedure, he had a new "roomie". I guess this other patient must have a staff infection as well. We don't know anything about him yet. It is very different for us since Paul has been in isolation since he came to the hospital. As of today, Paul is the last of original head trauma patients that we've been with since this ordeal started that hasn't gone to Rehab. Tommy went today...praise God! That makes five of them that have recovered enough to move on. It is amazing to see these recoveries. God is sooo good! Have a great day!!

Love, Lynne & Carl