Updates...

Michael had an appointment at the BRAINS Clinic with Dr. Cardenas this week.  He was thrilled with Michael's progress... ESPECIALLY the progress he made with Physical Therapy. He assessed Michael's balance, walking, etc. and he said "Wow! That's a significant improvement!". Those are great words to hear out of a doctor's mouth. He reviewed the report he got from the Neuropsych testing that they did a few months back and compared it to the previous testing from 2 years ago. Overall, fairly comparable. There was some decline in a few areas - the most notable was memory and processing. He said that as we age we ALL decline in those areas and with Michael's past TBIs he would expect those areas to decline a little more rapidly than average. Because Michael has things in place at home to help him in these areas (white boards throughout the house, uses a pill box, etc) he wasn't too concerned. We talked about our upcoming move to Ohio and he said we were doing the right thing. He is going to see Michael will see Dr. Cardenas one more time before we go and then send all the records to the neurologist at Cleveland Clinic.

The feeding tube adventures have been up and down.  

Michael landed in the ER, and then was admitted to the hospital Wednesday. We went after the GI sent us there for a very evident infection in the stoma (the hole) of his GJ tube site to have it cultured and have the placement checked. We figured it would be a quick ER visit to figure out the type of infection and then send us on our merry way with a script for oral antibiotics. Instead, the scans to check placement showed that his tube had somehow coiled up and was actually into the stomach area, not the small intestines where it belonged. They initially said we could discharge home and come back outpatient to have it fixed. UNTIL the ER doctor realized he feeds into the small intestines using the J port because he can't have food in the stomach because it will reflux into the esophagus and spill over into the lungs causing aspiration pneumonia. So... he couldn't continue feeds obviously.... but also couldn't eat. Then she put 2 and 2 together and she suspects when Michael was so sick last week it was likely because it has been coiled and this scenario is exactly what happened.... he aspirated the feeds and what the PCP thought was a simple bronchitis with junky lungs was probably aspiration pneumonia. Next thing we knew she came back in and said he earned himself a hospital stay and surgery the next day!

Michael had the procedure yesterday afternoon to fix the tube and it couldn't have gone smoother. He was in the procedure room about 30-40 minutes, but he actual process of fixing it took less than 5 minutes! The preliminary culture reports were back on the infection by the time we got back... it's full of all kinds of icky stuff. The hospital doctor was confident they could treat it with high dose oral antibiotics (500mg of Keflex FOUR times a day!!!) though, and once they ran about 30 min of the feeds into the tube without any issues they discharged him.

Michael has to follow up with Dr Mohindra (primary) Tuesday morning to be sure the antibiotics are doing their thing, and then follow up with his GI doctor the following week. We have LOTS of questions for that appointment, but we are thankful all is back to "normal" for now!

Things are moving, albeit slowly, for our upcoming move home to Ohio.  The biggest challenge to actually GETTING there is the financial end of it....  we put together our moving budget (moving truck costs, gas for the 3 day drive, hotel stays for 2 nights, food along the way, cushion for emergencies, and deposits on the new house/utilities.  My mouth hit the floor when I saw the total go well over $5000!!!  Aye-yi-yi!  I had a good interview with a SNF contract therapy company and have had a few more calls.  Unfortunately we're still too far out to really get serious about moving forward.  It also looks like we found a house already!  The house is in the school district that Paige wanted to be in and within walking distance, where her Uncle Bill teaches.  We started scoping out churches in the area and the one we've felt most drawn to also meets at that same school.  

Things to pray for are....
- Michael's stoma infection to clear
- That Michael would NOT get "c-diff"...  he had Rocephine 10 days ago followed by 7 days of Levaquin and now a 10 day high dose of Keflex for infection...  he is at high risk of c-diff as a result of all the antibiotics.  No thank you!
- For the financial piece to fall into place for our move so that we can have that worry off our shoulders
- Also, we have a few unmentioned prayer requests for 2 family members who are battling serious health issues

Much love to you all!