Sunshine, Birds, Grass, Smiles

Doesn't he look great? This was our PT outing today. We got Parker outside in front of the hospital, near the grass, under the trees, where he could hear the flocks of birds that are everywhere. The inner courtyard the other day was pretty awesome, but this... this was great. So good for Parker's soul. And mine.

He walked without the walker for a few steps for the first time, also. Then Lindsey, our dedicated PT person, spent a good chunk of the morning tracking down the right wheelchair so we could take him outside, and so off we went. The birds cooperated by putting on an appropriately perfect symphony. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, it was hot ~ just the way Parker likes it ~ and the shade from the trees added a beautiful finishing touch.


Here are more photo of some of our favorite people, those who have become so much more than "just" our health care team on this incredible journey. We feel their friendships are God's reward for fighting so hard to get well.

This is Lisa from New Hampshire. Lisa has lived here about a year and a half. She loves to garden, and one of the things she likes about Austin the most is the long growing season as compared to New England. She is an outdoors person, rides her bike to work every day, volunteers at a coop bookstore, raises chickens in her back yard, and she became my hero when she brought Parker his first piece of fruit he'd had in months. Lisa is one of our favorite nurses, and our most fun hospital days are when we have Lisa and Amy together. Then we laugh all day. I told Lisa today when we were discussing Parker's digestive system woes that it is an odd way to form a friendship, while talking about poop and throw up.



Lindsey is our fabulous, energetic, compassionate, tough-love-when-he-needs-it PT person. The same Lindsey who brought Parker a stack of movies when we had only been out of ICU for a few days in order to help him focus on something other than his pain. Lindsey is from Ohio, but is married to a former military guy so they moved around a lot. She has a HUGE smile which lights up our room. I really attribute so much of Parker's success in physical therapy to her ever encouraging optimism. When Parker gets out of the hospital we are going to get together for Monopoly. Seeing Lindsey is one of the highlights of our day.



Here are more random, outdoor photos of Parker from today:

Get The Truck!

What an exciting day! A day we thought was going to be one of the worst, has turned into one of the best. God has a funny sense of humor at times.

Parker walked 50' today! FIFTY FEET! He held the walker and went. Everyone who saw us stopped with their jaws to the ground and exclaimed, Look at Parker!

Martin stayed up front with Parker, I followed right behind him with the wheelchair and when he said he had walked as far as he could, he sat down in the wheelchair and we wrapped him up in a blanket and pushed him OUTSIDE to the courtyard off the third floor! OUTSIDE in the fresh air!

When we got to the courtyard, Parker tilted his head, looked up at the sky and let silent tears fall. He didn't have to say anything, both Martin and I knew what they were for. He asked to be pushed around near the plants, so we walked around the entire courtyard and stopped at the statue of Elizabeth Ann Seton (as in Seton Hospital) for a photo shoot.

It was enough to wear anyone out, the emotion of it all. But as we started back, Parker asked Martin if we could go to the ICU. He wanted to see it again, and he wanted to see Yonus. Talk about an emotional journey.

We walked The Green Mile and I explained to him why I called it that. We rounded the corner to his room, and it was empty. Yesterday afternoon there was a Code Blue called to ICU-A and I had a horrible feeling it was to the room he had been in for those 6+ weeks. I didn't ask, but the room was eerily empty. Spooky. Parker looked at it, dropped his head down and cried some more.

We went to find Yonus, who was in a different part of the ICU. There were two "issues" going on at the same time, one in the room where he was working. We saw Brittany and she went to get Yonus. He told us later she said, "Yonus, Parker's back!" He thought she meant back in ICU, but when he saw us in the hallway his face lit up in that fabulous smile that only belongs to him.

Parker cried some more when he came out, and told him he'd wanted to come down there to see where he had been so sick for so long, and also to see Yonus because he had been so significant a player in his recovery. Yonus put his hand on Parker's shoulder and said, It is so good to see you, Parker, you look so healthy!

That was about all the ICU any of us could take. I'm not sure how I lived down there for so long with out going nuts. Or maybe I did go nuts and no one told me yet. Parker wept the whole way back.

I can't believe I was in that place for so long, Mom. I can't believe I made it out of there. That room .... those hallways .... those sick people, was I that sick???

Going down there today made it clear how far we have come. How far Parker has come, how hard he has worked, what he has accomplished. I thought about those weeks when he lay on one of those beds like a big lump, unconscious, kept alive by machines and people whose hands I had to trust to care for my son, to save his life. Those weeks I lived in the ICU waiting room, waiting for him to come back to me, when I turned his life over to God because that was all there was left to do.

Thank you God, for not letting me down, for letting Your will be the same as mine!

Now he is sleeping in his big, sun filled room on the 4th floor. He has slept since we got back, his head tilted off to one side, his NG tube falling out of his nose a little crooked, his SuperHero pajama shorts on, and the beep, beep, beeping of the machines hooked back up to him.

There is much more for me to write about the feelings of today, but right now I have to rest. And absorb. Then I'll write. Parker insisted on my putting up the photo of the two of us. I told him in the other photos, he looks like a convict and Martin looks like the prison guard. We laughed about that because when he took his first steps toward the hallway this afternoon, at the start of our journey, he looked at me and said, Mom, get the truck!

Red Badge of Courage

Just when I thought he had shown me all he had, Parker rose to the challenge before him and pushed himself past what progress was expected or hoped for this entire week. And it's just past lunchtime.



This was supposed to be one of the hardest days he has faced since coming off the ventilator in ICU. The night was long and weary, as can be seen from the post I wrote below at 4:am TX time.



This morning when Eric came (the Occupational Therapist seen in the photo) Parker got that determined-little-boy face on, stood up for a total of 10 minutes (that was the total for the whole day yesterday), PUT ON HIS SUPER HERO PAJAMA SHORTS (with assistance, but he did most of the work himself), brushed his teeth while standing, combed his hair while standing (which is tricky because reaching his arms over his head causes him to lose his balance and once he fell back onto the bed faster than Eric and I could catch him), AND marched in place!


Parker, YOU are my hero!



His reward is that this afternoon, after he does his endurance work of marching in place, Martin and I are putting him in the wheelchair and taking him out to the third floor courtyard for his first breath of fresh air since April 2nd! More photos later!