Just wanted to let you know that Mark is supposed to be able to come home on Tuesday....YAY! We are so excited we miss him so much! Even though we see him everyday it is just not the same as having him home.

Marks sister, Brenda flew in from Ohio last week...it was a total God thing that the hotel she booked before we even knew Mark would be sent to a rehabilitation place was literally a hop, skip and a jump from the rehab place...God is so cool to be in even the smallest of details! She spent everyday with him until she had to go back home this past Tuesday. It was a blessing to see her and for Mark and her to get to spend some good one on one time with each other! She also spent some time with Stephanie and Jessica while she was here, and that was nice for them, they enjoyed having that time with her.

As much as he wants to be home again and we want him home it has been such a blessing to see all the friends he has made at Health South, in several of the patients and the staff. There is Rebbecca, Leonard, Ric, Joe, Jeremy, Robin....to name a few. Rebbecca is semi blind and rehabbing from a surgery and she is learning how to live independently, Leonard is an older quiet man who had a stroke, Ric is a young man with a severe brain injury...he has a beautiful smile and is such a sweet young man...he talks to us about Anne Frank whom he loved reading about, I asked him if he ever heard of Corrie Ten Boom, he said no, so I gave him the book The Hiding Place this evening, he was so excited to get it, Joe is an older gentleman who plays dominoes with Mark during occupational therapy, Jeremy is one of the techs on staff that Mark has befriended, they give each other a hard time, and laugh a lot...and Robin is an amputee that is battling with many emotions on her journey and Mark has been quite an encouragement to her as she has been to him as well...it has been a blessing to see him encourage be encouraged by and share Christs love with them!

He seems to be doing a bit better, some days are more difficult then others especially in regards to his speech, it will be a long time though before he is back to himself again...apparently he has something going on with his breathing as he just called me to say that after we left tonight they put him on breathing treatments every 6 hours....it seemed that he was making decent progress with his speech up until today that is, as his breathing seemed very difficult for him which made him tense and his speech more difficult. I hope to find out more from the doctor tomorrow.

On a good note his pain is being managed much better then with the way we were doing it at home (we were being so conservative with his meds that they were not giving him good relief from the pain, but rather it was a game of playing catch up all the time...) now they have him on a more consistent regimen with his meds and while his pain is still bad it is so much better then before. We hope to continue with the plan for the Neurostimulator via Dr. Chase (the pain doctor) as soon as we get the ok from the docs at rehab and his primary doctor...

ok so that is all for now...God bless you all!!!

Kelly