Sunday Night / 7:00 p.m.

Dear Family and Friends,
I am so sorry that we have not been updating throughout the day. We have not had access to the computer today, so we thought. We finally figured out, after mom asked, that the nurses at the nurses station will let us use one of the computers here. Today has seemed like a miracle to us. My dad is doing so good. To those who have not seen him until today, it has been upsetting. But those who have been here from the surgery on are amazed at how good he is doing. Mom was upset this morning to find that he had had a very restless night and had again ripped out more lines: IV, chest drain tube, doppler sensor and feeding tube. All of those things had to be attended to and now his feeding tube is SERIOUSLY ANCHORED(like duct taped to his forhead),IV restarted, dopler up and running........all is well. But, she also found a much improved patient in many other ways. He IS more himself and has so much strength to move about and get in and out of bed.
He IMPRESSED Dr. Sharma MEETING him out in the nurse's station. (Perhaps he wanted to make sure the Dr. knew how good he was doing and not rely on the nurse's to tell him.) A surprized Dr. Sharma said, "Good Morning , Marty." Marty just said "WOW" One new thing is he was taught how to occlude the trach for speaking purposes, but actually he was doing pretty good without that trick.
He has amazed us by (power) walking around the ICU unit and waiting room and has been up and out of his bed at least 10 times. He has seemed more like himself and has let us tease him a bit and teased back. He has seemed very happy to have several visitors today.....LaRee, Angie, Deidra, Janet, Mom Baker, Brandon, Sabrina & Shailey, Gordon & Michelle, SunDee and Randy.
OK, just to prove how good he really is tonight, he has the remote control in his hand and is trying to watch TV. (FIRST).
We are trying to be positive, and for an ICU patient, he really is doing well, but we also do not want to minimize the serious nature of this surgery and the amount of misery he is enduring. He is being extremely brave and strong. Goodnight and Happy Labor Day...................Angie and LaRee