Fourth Day of Sanity

Hello all,

John titled this one. This is our fourth day home and being back to sanity. He has some terrible memories of things that happened to him in the hospital that must have been hallucinations. He thought there were terrorists, mannequins and all kinds of terrible things. They are extremely real to him, but we of course know that didn't happen. Drugs are wonderful things, but can also do all kinds of strange things to our minds at times. Anyway, we certainly continue to enjoy being home. He said McLeansboro has never looked so good and made me drive through town just so he could see it.

We plan to continue blogging until after John's follow-up appointments in a couple of weeks. We have so enjoyed this and hope you have too. It is certainly a way to keep everyone updated and as much in the loop as we are.

Today is Sunday and we went to church today for the first time in five weeks. That's a long time for us to have missed church. Cejae went with us this morning and it was a very spiritual and emotional (imagine that) experience for us. It was our fellowship dinner at church today and we brought plates home with us. How nice and how delicious it was! God has been so good to us and blessed us so much that we cannot begin to give him all the praise He deserves. It was so good for John to see everyone and for everyone to see him. Everyone thought he looked so good and many thought he was talking better than he was before the surgery. We are so thankful to God and to all of you for your kindness, thoughtfulness, gifts, prayers, yard work, food, and everything you have done for us. We really can't say how much it has all meant to us.

We took a ride with Cejae this afternoon to Ridgway and that was very nice also. John really enjoyed that. He didn't even have a nap today. His brother Gabe and his wife Mary came to visit this evening. We went to church again tonight.

Friday and Saturday we had several people come visit. Rick Bailey came on Friday evening, John's brother Steve and his wife Sheila were here on Saturday as was Jerry Hart, Jim Hutchcraft and Steve Bowling. It was so nice to see everyone. Rick had been up right after John's surgery and couldn't believe how much better John looked. John doesn't remember Rick being there at all.

He seems to get stronger and have more stamina every day. His eating is going very well, the feeding tube wound is healing nicely and his eye appears to have improved somewhat. Last night I asked John how his belly hole was and he sang, "There's a hole in my belly, dear Liza, dear Liza. There's a hole in my belly, dear Liza, a hole." He just makes me laugh--a wonderful gift that I appreciate so much.

Well, I'm going to sign off for tonight. We'll try to let you know how therapy goes tomorrow. Thanks for following and, again, for everything you've done.

Love,

John and Cathy