Update from Mike (Tues/Weds 2/3-4)

Tuesday

 Karen kept moving forward on her road to recovery. Her physical therapy continues to improve everyday. Today Karen made it up to 17 minutes on the treadmill, stopping at times to rest. This is the most she's done post surgery. In Karen's attempt to get off of the ventilator, she was aiming for two minutes breathing on her own. She worked very hard to reach her goal of two hours breathing on her own, but she fell thirty minutes short because her chest started hurting. The respiratory therapist assured her that she was fine, but he decided that it was best to not push things due to her recent heart issues. She is still backwards with her sleep cycle. She has to work so hard in the morning and into the afternoon that she crashes the rest of the day and then we don't sleep at night. I won't go to sleep until she does.

Wednesday

This morning our road to recovery continued. We started the day striving for a successful 2 hr hiatus from the ventilator. I put on my cheerleader outfit, which I might say I look pretty hot in, and kept Karen focusing on her goal. Her numbers were great, but Karen feels like she's not breathing so she gets very anxious and upset. She continued to focus on her goal of 2hrs even though she was very scared. We played cards and watched rerun episodes of The Big Bang Theory and suddenly our two hours were up. She took a short break and then she was back in the hands of the physical therapists. It was treadmill time. Karen did 4 sets of 5 minutes for a total of 20 minutes which is the most she's done so far and without any heart issues. But her day was not done. The doctors came in and decided that Karen needed to try and crank out another 2hrs of breathing without the ventilator. Karen thought she was done so I don't have to tell you the kind of look she gave to the doctors. If looks could kill, AEDs were needed for all four.
So Karen rested for a bit and I fluffed up my pom poms and we started the timer. She got through the first hour and set her sites on the second. I won't lie, the second hour was a tremendous struggle. She was exhausted but hung in there and finished her objective. Finally she could rest.

Please send positive thoughts our way because tomorrow morning at 6:30 we start all over again except we'll be shooting for 6 minutes tomorrow. I knew Karen's recovery would be very difficult with ups and downs. I just wish I could jump into her body just for the recovery mind you and do it for her. It's a very helpless feeling. Again I want to thank everyone for all of their support. Thank you for the get well cards, gift cards, meal tickets for the hospital, meals for Morgan, Patrick, and Kiersten, your prayers and also for the many donations that have been given. I know we're not finished with this journey, but without the support from all of you and so many others, we could not have even hoped to be where we are today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!