At the ER

Well things were going so well we decided we needed a visit to the ER to shake things up! Jeremy has been throwing up for the past 3 nights, just as night. But its happened enough that what we first thought was a flu bug is now making him dehydrated. Which is kind of a no-no when you just had a kidney removed! So he is getting fluids, they have drawn labs and done a CT of his abdomen. Thank God for awesome friends, one who has taken the kids and one who may end up going to Syracuse for me to go pick up my dad at the airport.  Agh!

I have been reading my Faith Deployed Again devotional and have really been reminded of a couple things. 1) we can't forget what God has already done for us. Rather than worry about the future and what we are going through today, we have to be faithful and remember just how amazing Gods promises are. 2)
We have a choice to make in whether serving the Lord is our hearts desire.

"But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord" -Joshua 24:15.

Thank you to Joyce, Bettina, and Jessica for this amazing reminder. And a huge thanks to Marie for taking the monkeys off my hands so I can care for Jeremy.

Just talked to doc and everything is coming back good! Which means we get to go home soon. Thinking meds or stomach bug but no blockages or infections! Thank you Lord for answered prayers.

things at home

i am still amazed at how much progress jeremy has made in the last few days since being home. its killing him though that he cant pick up the kids yet. he tried to pick up b today and just didnt have the strength to hold her up. :( took him with us to church last night and this morning. so glad i could finally introduce him to so many of people who have been praying for him and us. tomorrow he is suppose to start his con leave, 2 weeks of NADA! woohoo! he is also scheduled to finally get the last of his stitches out on friday. he is walking better, and has more energy than when i came home a week ago. abs are still sore and doc started him on a new med for the nerve pain/numbness in his right leg. will probably need to increase the dosage (had to start at lowest dose, doc expects to increase) but at least its getting worked on. its seriously amazing HOW far he has come in the last 3.5 weeks.

I want to give a HUGE thanks to everyone who has been praying for his healing and for strength for our family. I can't say thank you enough to our friends and family for their physical, spiritual, and even financial support. God has truley blessed us with amazing people in our lives, even some new ones thanks to this ordeal. We are so very blessed. THANK YOU ALL!

he is home!!!!

thank you God for bringing him home!!!! kids were super excited. i promise to post some pics and stuff later. have some errands to run while he inprocesses at WTU (thats been a fun experience so far let me tell you what), relying on the fact that we KNOW God brought him back here NOW for a reason. and i KNOW there are great things coming. trying to be happy about the small things, like hearing him snore while i sleep, and going to get pumpkins this weekend, and just getting to be a family again. love this soldier!!!!! welcome home baby!!!!

the sun will come out TOMORROW!!!!!

he is scheduled for a flight to ft drum TOMORROW!!!!!! wow! so much to do, so little time! so glad my friends here have been able to help! i could not have survived this without them. so thanks deploymates!! you rock! =D they know i love them dearly. jeremy was again a little sore after a PT session and an OT session but is just very anxious to be coming home. The kids are both very excited. I keep stressing the  fact that daddy cant lift them, or really do more than hug them. no jumping, rough-housing, or climbing of any kind. i know once they see his stomach they will be careful.

so tmrw i need to run to the grocery store, finish disinfecting the house and complete some welcome home signs. thinking about letting friends and family "sign" one. going to post this on FB too, so please leave me a comment below or a comment on the FB post telling me what you want your message to jeremy to say and i will sign them on his welcome home banner for you. local friends feel free to stop by and sign it yourself!!!!! you have until 4pm to do so! =D AND DONT TELL JEREMY!!!!!!!! iwant it to be a surprise! this is gonna be a great but insane day! i am just soooooo thankful that God has provided for us in such amazing ways.

purple heart

Jeremy got his purple heart today! and from the president no less!!!! it was a quick meet-n-greet type thing but still he got pinned (on his KU tshirt!) jeremy said everyone was very nice and i cant wait to see some of the professional pics taken and hear more about what happened. so proud of him!!!!

ok onto his progress. he is def more sore today. big PT session yesterday wiped him out. they changed some of his meds to hopefully curb the anxiety. still looks like he should be home with us in the next couple of days!!! i am so excited!!! there is still tons to do to get ready for his arrival though. with both kids having been sick i have to scrub this house and clorox the crap out of every surface. ugh! i am just glad he is continuing to make tremendous progress. this whole thing has really made us have to evaluate what we want out of life, our marriage, our faith, and i cant wait to see how God is gonna work through us in the coming weeks. its gonna be rough, there is no getting past that. But that doesnt mean it wont be good for us. i love you baby, im so proud of you.

getting back to "normal"

Well at least one of us is back to a "normal" life right now.  I am back in NY and had to take my mom to the airport today. Of course kids are sick and there were bills that needed to be paid and laundry to do.... Thankfully I have awesome neighbors who helped distract me by having the kids play outside all afternoon! Jackson is already passed out! Time to get the sick little princess in bed and try to finish getting things ready for Jeremys arrival. Still dont know when that will be but I havent even unpacked yet!!!!!


Today he seems to be doing pretty well, did stairs in physical therapy which is huge. He just keeps checking things off on the list so that he can get out of there!!!! Also found out that our fav surgeon (and one of the heads of his trauma team) is going to do her couple weeks of admin work so one of the other surgeons will be taking over his care. She has full confidence in him! I'm glad one of us does! lol! I love Dr. Malone! I dont want her to leave. Trusting that the plans that have been put into motion are going to go smoothly and that we are doing what God asks of us right now. We will hopefully have him home to Ft Drum sometime this week. It seems insane!!! I never thought it would be this quick......


On the plus side he got to meet one of the living Medal of Honor reciepients today, the one with the bionic hand that recently got his medal from President Obama. I am simply amazed that Jeremy had the chance to talk to him. Yesterday before I left we had the chance to meet and talk with the commanding general of the 101st airborne division. It was awesome to talk with him and here how he feels about what it takes to make a good unit and how you need good nco's, good squads, good platoons, to make everything click. Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

James 1:2-5

I am simply amazed

Jeremy has had another good day even though his anxiety is bad today. Hey it happens, mine hasnt exactly been controlled lately! Lol! His went downstairs for occupational therapy and did really well that is until they had to peel him off the ceiling when a balloon popped!!!  Got my papers done for coming home to drum, and had lunch with him then rode the metro (scary!) to downtown and went sightseeing! Met up with inlaws to see the white house and when i got back found out we saw the 1985 chicago bears superbowl team on the grounds meeting president obama! Da bears!
Now we are waiting to meet back up with inlaws and have dinner. I still gotta do some laundry for j and pack for my flight tomorrow. Sad to be going but so glad that i am able to leave jeremy in capable hands. =D so thankful that God has given us the chance to grow closer through this experience.
Simple amazed......

Getting the staples out!

Better day today with just about everything! Staples coming out, not as much pain, and better appetite. cant believe how well he is doing today. Walking is better with pt, and i feel so so blessed to have been able to go through this journey with him!

That was an interesting wakeup call....

While finishing getting ready this morning at the hotel I got a phone call from the charge nurse to let me know how Jeremy was doing. He appears to maybe have pulled some muscles in his chest and back and was having some "chest pain". They went ahead and did an ekg (was normal) and a chest xray (still waiting on results). His vitals are still fine (O2 still 97% on roomair, no fever, bp good) but looks like he did a little too much yesterday and today will be a setback day. We knew it was gonna happen sometime. He is still in fairly good spirits and actually slept fairly well until about 5am. I will update this post later as i know more. =D

Look ma! No tubes!

Today has been another eventful day. Not only did he get the feeding tube out this afternoon, but he also got to shower, shave, and is up and walking like a champ. I am simply amazed at how far God has brought him in the last week. A week ago we were worried that he couldnt tolerate being off the vent. Werent sure what i was going to see in germany. I am simply amazed.....
We have also been so humbled by the amazing people who volunteer their time here. Not only did the uso serve a fab lunch for families today, but jeremy also recieved 2 new coins today. 1 from "marines care", and one from the under secretary of the navy!! Tomorrow he is scheduled to recieve his purple heart. Not sure who all that entails but i will have my makeup on! Lol! And also met a couple who is going around to all the armed forces blood centers and donating blood. Considering we found out that jeremy had almost 50 units in all during his surgery we were so very thankful for their sacrifice. Its also amazing how much quicker paperwork can get done here. All mine is now done (as much as can be for this stage), his mom and bro have their orders and are coming tomorrow, and his purple heart papers are done! I seem to remember those taking a lot longer last go round! So excited to see the fam tomorrow!!!! =D
Best news of all is that everyone is working very hard to get him moved to drum as soon as possible. I am so thankful that God has placed so many of these people in our lives. Each day here has been a gift from the most high king.
Thank you Lord....

Talk about progress!!!!

Wow!!! So night went ok. He was having crazy vivid dreams keeping him awake after waking. Today has been insane with all kinds of consults with everything from his trauma team, pain management docs, social workers, liasons, finance for his LES, dental, concussion check, physical therapy, and still waiting on warrior transition brigade liason & occupational therapy.
Got to meet some of my faith deployed friends which was awesome! But now the concussion team just had to have him go through what happened to see if he needs further neurology eval for tbi or concussion. This is the first time i have heard what actually happened.  I will not be posting it but i am so thankful to now know what has happened. Seems to be handeling it ok. 

Lots of major changes today. Central line in neck is out, soft mechanical diet starting, change in pain meds, foley coming out, has walker from pt so he can get up when he needs to, and no oxygen!!!!! Overall today has been amazing. He has seriously made leaps and bounds today. I am so so so proud of him. Thanks you jesus for the amazing progress he has made and the amazing team of people caring for both of us..

Today is a better day

Well yesterday after i posted was kind of rough. Jeremy was ok but it seemed like we had to fight to get his basic care done. At shift change i felt a lot better and confident that his pain was going to be better controlled and he would be better taken care of. So i went back to the hotel to sleep. Bad idea! He had a bad night, getting sick, having to try and hold himself up while doing so (not ok!!!!!). So when pain management team doc and his surgeon from yesterday came by this morning we expressed our concerns and they were PISSED. dr. Malone (surgeon) flat out said people could lose their jobs. I now have her card and have been ordered to call if we have ANY issues. She apologized profusely said it was totally unacceptable and pain doc was mad that he wasnt notified of jeremys problems controlling his pain. I hate that "heads are gonna roll" but the lack of care yesterday sucked.
Everything is going so much better today though!!!! He is way more comfortable and seems to be feeling a bit better. Even held his O2 stats at 94+ while off the oxygen when we were getting him cleaned up and changed into his sunday best (aka the pretty striped blue hospital gown! Lol!). Thats seriosuly great progress! Got him his wounded warrior quilt and a good pillowcase so he is feeling a little more at home.
Also got to check on kevin, the 21yo soldier who was on the medevac flight with us is going to get to keep his right arm! PTL!!! Lots of surgerys and wont have 100% use of it but still will be tons TONS better than losing it. So overall today has been much better. Cant wait to talk to his whole team of docs tmrw and get a full report and care plan in place. Lots and lots of info, meetings, therapists (physical, occupational etc), and paperwork for me (finance, woohoo!). Keep praying y'all! Its working wonders! 

Post op oct 1

Well he is done with the wound close surgery (it was really quick!) And is now on a regular unit rather than icu!!!!! PTL! He is scheduled to meet with the physical and occupational therapists monday. I am waiting on a full report/update from doc to find out what the overall care plan is. I am every nurses stations worst nightmare. A family member who knows how the system works and what quality patient care is!! Lol! They just gave him some more pain meds. Think we are both going to sneak in a nap.....scratch that in the time it took me to type that last sentance he is OUT! Does this mean i can turn off college game day now? Well thats it for now. He is making real progress and i cant say thank you jesus enough!