Saturday, December 1, 2012

My Second Transplant - Day 134

Hello everyone.  Its Laura.  I am updating Jon’s blog since he is unable to.

Thank you so much for all of your love and support so far.  We are having a silent auction to help pay our enormous medical bills that we have coming in.  The information is listed both above. Sorry for the short notice, things have not only been crazy around here but we had several people back out. Fortunately we do have things together and we are ready to get this silent auction going!  I have collected a lot of things, thanks to the generous companies and people who have donated. Please start spreading the word! If you are unable to come to the auction but would like to donate, we do have a donation button at the top of this page, you can send your payment directly to the JWagner fund, c/o US Bank, 301 E Horsetooth Road, Fort Collins, CO 80525 or visit www.jwagnerfund.com. If you are on facebook and are coming, please go to the link on my page and let us know! I am very excited to see all of you!



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Now onto my Jon.  As many of you have heard Jon came off the ventilator on Sunday around 3:00pm.  He did so extremely well on the vent that it was a breeze to get him off of it! He has had many steroids to fight off the damage to his lungs from the CMV virus, so he unfortunately had a lot of muscle mass disappear (and he was only on the vent for 5 1/2 days - amazing how fast it occurs).  So, when he first woke up he could not speak, raise his arms or legs, or move his head.  In the last week he has made miraculous strides towards his recovery.  As I have said before he is a fighter!

At the beginning of this week we thought it was going to be a long road of healing.  They were telling us that he would have several weeks of recovery in the ICU, then move to Spaulding Recovery for rehab for his muscles. We were looking at 6-8 weeks for the recovery process. But not now!!  Jon has pushed through his physical therapy everyday. By Monday afternoon he could raise his arms about 6 inches, by Tuesday he could raise his arms to his mouth and was alert enough to check his phone the first time and by Wednesday he could feed himself (sort of).  On Thursday he sat in a chair for the first time for almost an hour. It was amazing - even the doctors thought so!!  On Friday he was doing great.  He fed himself, played on his phone and starting watching TV.  On Saturday he pulled himself up and also took 19 steps!! He is trying really hard.  He really wants to be home for Christmas, and it looks like he will be! He has been cleared of Pneumonia and the CMV virus is almost gone. 

We are taking it one day at a time...  but so far it is going much better than expected.  His doctor said today that he is on a path they hope all of their patients could be on.

He is still going to have another transplant, but of course that has been delayed until he is strong enough to get through it. I am so proud of his endurance, strength and determination to get back to himself.

We had the pleasure this week of seeing Hayden - well Jon was on facetime with him, but he was at the hospital with my parents and Bill.  He was so excited to see the big “twee” and the moo (reindeer) figurine. He is doing such a good job walking, even though he does not bend his knees and he walks on his tippy toes! It was so great to see him, its been so hard to be away from him. We are very lucky that we have a loving family helping us out!

As Jon would say... “remember if you think life is good it will be!”


-Laura