January 17, 2006 - Mid-Morning

Mandy continues to be a little tired from all the medications and is having her therapies bed side to the extent that she is able. We did get some very good news yesterday. They did the "scope" as planned in the afternoon (with Kurt at her side) and affirmed that she does not have gall stones. (Which is very good news indeed). It appears that her pancreatitis is actually a chronic condition that she's had for about a year and has been caused by various medications she's been taking. (Which also explains all the digestive problems she was having even before the accident). The recent increased in medications and the stress just exacerbated it. So the good news is that her problem does not require yet another surgical procedure, the better news is that this is a pre-existing condition and not another complication arising from her accident and the best news is that they think they should be able to control it by trying different medications. We can't help but believe that the great news was yet again the result of all of the mountain of prayers and good energy sent to everyone over the weekend. You all are doing more than you think!

Although she is technically still due to be released to CNS on Thursday, we believe that they'll keep her for another week so as to try and recoup this "sick" week. So please don't stop visiting! We have a need for day time Monday through Friday visitors right now. [Weekends and evenings are generally pretty well covered.] With her IV's, she is restrained when no one is with her (she'll pull them out otherwise). To the extent you have ability in your schedule, please do schedule yourself to come see her then. She really benefits from seeing the familiar faces!

And on a lighter note, we have some cute Amanda stories to share. She must have been appreciating her vision yesterday. When Kevin showed up, she told him he looked "pretty". [For those of you that haven't met Kevin, we need to give you some visual cues so you can appreciate the humor of that comment. Kurt calls him Jesus on a motorcycle. That description may not be too far off the mark. Kevin was wearing his bike leathers. He has a beard and longish hair; he's not a smoker but he is the picture of a the Marlboro man on his bike. Handsome sure, pretty? Well, we have to imagine how much he appreciated that.] They also had "dog therapy" last night and Mandy told the various dogs that they were "such good boys" and "weren't they pretty?" Since one of them was a Great Dane, we know she had to have felt right at home!

Finally, TAnn shared a nice story from last Friday. Martha has made a scrapbook for Mandy out of all the blog entries and comments left by friends and family since then. (Thank you Martha!) Mandy read through the entire book last Friday. Not once, not twice, but 4 times. She read every word; every comment. She followed along with the words with her finger on the lines. We believe that she was absorbing it all. We hope and wait for the day that the last post is made to this blog and it is Mandy typing that last entry into the keyboard. Visualize whirled peas.