The travel and all the running around the Hospital has worn me out. I guess that is what I get for having this old broken down body.

Anyway here is the deal....

Got there Friday before the surgery and we were able to see him before and that is only because he got bumped for a guy that ended up is room mate after. He also had his leg amputated and was much more complicated because of his injuries nd it was above the knee.

As for my son he came through it great and woke up feeling really good. That changed Saturday evening with a lot of pain and then in the middle of the night he stopped breathing. They are not sure why, but his oxygen levels are not holding and there is lots of meds so they are trying to find out what is causing that. We were very lucky because a nurse was in seeing his room mate when that happened. He was snoring and stopped and luckily they noticed it and got him restarted and moved him to ICU for just short of 24 hours. Now that the oxygen is a problem they have moved him to a different room so he gets more attention (less patients per nurse).

Other than this all is really gone well and they put off looking at his stump today and will look tomorrow.

The big catch of all this is his skin is so thin from being burned so badly that it is not a certainty that this will work as he wants it to (in other words be able to jump out of air planes and return to unit in the field). The good part though is he has the respect from so many of the military Brass it is really something and they all like him so much that his future is bright even if this doesn't work as he wants so he can again jump out of air planes. Even the Brass from other branch's seem to have this great feeling for him. He will be there until about the first of the month and then home to Tampa until it's time to start rehab and then back to BAMC for a good bit.

They even want him to stay a little longer than necessary this time because some Admiral wants to see him and he will not be there for a couple of weeks. I mean he's not even in the Navy, but this guy and the others want him there for when he comes.

So thank you for all the prayers and I am sure they helped!

He looked great when we saw him yesterday morning on our way out!

Skip
PS there is one more issue that is not so good. It's something we knew about and that some time they would need to take care of some how. behind his right knee the skin cracks easy and is not good condition. The bad part of this is it's location. It is right where all the blood vessels run and it's dangerous to cut that out to graph better skin in that spot. You can die just from the surgery it things don't go well as they would have to cut the vessels and reattach them after. His friend Doctor though has told him there is another way they may be able to look at which is some kind of patch of skin that wouldn't require cutting the old out I think. I really am not too sure about this, but at some point they will need to fix that some way.

Also you will see on the news maybe today or tomorrow that they at BAMC have grown a finger from scratch. All the new technology is amazing and they are doing a lot of research with this stuff, skin, regrowing fingers, etc.

Glad to hear that things are going so well Skip!

We will continue our prayers for you and that son of yours!

I KNOW what all that brass sees in him!

That would of been pretty scary Skip but I am glad he is holding up well. Prayers will continue to be sent from us here! Good luck for a speedy recovery!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL My Prayers Are With You

Glad to know all is going according to plan.. Also glad to know your trip went well, I know travel can sometimes be a pain...
By the way how's your eyes doing?
jigum

Good to hear Skip. Continued prayers from here.

Thanks all we appreciate it very much.

Matthew the eyes are coming along. They still have trouble with what they call mid range which must be like 2' to 4' distance. That could be better. Long distance and close up is really good and close up is getting better as things don't have to get quite as close to see it well. Sometime in bright light it seems like a Little kind of like flashing happens, but not that bad.

For tying I have some magnifying things that go on my head I use from small flies and now I use them almost all the time when tying. I can tie without that, but I see the details so much better with them.

Thanks,

Skip

Great to hear that everything is going to be OK Skip!!!
Best regards to you & your family as always...

Good to hear it went well. It's amazing the things that research is coming up with to help us live better lives.
Scott

my prayers are with him everyday, God bless

thanks for the update Skip, your son and family are in our prayers