RELEASED FROM CEDARS-SINAI

Melissa gets to go home tomorrow (Tue Jan 22)!  Wahoo!  It has been twelve days now since her aorta split and our lives were put on high alert.  And now we’re about to start a new chapter:  home re-hab.  I think our house is going to look pretty good after two weeks away.

But this moment is wonderful enough to cherish.  Melissa is back to her full exuberant life-loving self.  She will be months getting her strength and endurance back, but now is a very good now.  All sutures were removed today.  She matter-of-factly displays the still-healing chest incision.   Just about all of the life-monitoring apparatus was removed today.  She has needle tracks up and down her arms.  I didn’t even know she had a plastic tube encasing a wire directly to her heart (in case she needed an emergency jump-start).  She said it felt weird being removed because the wire was stuck directly to her heart.  Just a few tugs by the Doc and the wire and tube came out.  Yikes.  The only thing I want tugging at my heart is the reminder to love people!  And I DO mean that metaphorically. 

Melissa moved out of the ICU to a normal room yesterday.  There’s a big difference between a unit dedicated to keeping you alive versus one that prioritizes keeping you comfortable.  She actually slept last night.  No alarms and bells dinging so often it sounds like a casino.  I exaggerate not.  No loud intercom announcements of codes blue and red.  And no more people injecting or sucking fluids out of my daughter every hour!!

We moved our home base from Matt and Sarah Moore’s house this morning.  Their warm smiles and delightful kids did Karin and me a world of good.  Yesterday especially, Karin got weepy with each additional expression of kindness to us.  I understand those feelings.  We need and thrive on that love but aren’t necessarily the best at knowing how to process it.

I want to be with my church Sunday.  I want to hug the people who have labored in prayer for my daughter.  I want to praise and share about the kind of God who deals so kindly with His kids.  And if I hug you a little too hard, it’s for the folks around the U.S. and the world that I can’t get to.  May your prayers come back to bless you.

One more thing.  Thanks, Tim.  Thanks for being a calming and healing presence for so many days here in L.A.  I think of your teen years and am now glad I didn’t terminate you when it seemed reasonable.  You and Julie are always a breath of God for us.  I love you.

Dad