We got in on the wonderful excitement today and are so glad that we were there for Tom’s move. We hadn’t seen him since Monday morning before his move out of ICU and down to 6th floor at the Med Center. His change from then was phenomenal. He’s gone from having sat in a chair for an hour or two to moving freely around, showing his sense of humor and being able to express whatever he wants to say. Speaking still doesn’t feel totally comfortable for him, but to the listener it is so much easier to visit. We now have a very good reason to hope for full recovery and his being home for Christmas! Thank you, Lord — and thank you all for your prayers!

Beginning on the evening of November 1, Tom suffered what were thought to be a series of TIA’s Transient ischemic Attacks), which caused slurred speech and somewhat affected his ability to use his right side. He was taken to Immanuel hospital in Omaha and released again.  On Saturday, the 3rd,  he had a second event,  some tests were made, and he was released again on Tuesday.  Later in the week, he was again admitted to Immanuel  after another event.  After each event was over, Tom’s normal functioning would return, and he was suffering no pain.  However, the tests taken at Immanuel failed to show the cause of Tom’s problems.
On  Monday, November 12, Tom was transferred from Immanuel to the Medical Center at Clarkson (Omaha) for an angioplast, to try to determine the specific cause of his problems. Dr. Thorell, a highly reputed neurosurgeon, found a “hard place” in the artery behind Tom’s left eye. Surprisingly, the procedure shows that Tom’s body has formed collateral arteries that have been bypassing the blockage and feeding his brain. Tom has no plaque in the arteries of his brain, and Dr. Thorell believes that the blockage and collateral arteries are old, perhaps even congenital.
Because of the procedure, Tom was experiencing severe symptoms, so Dr. Thorell tried to put a probe through the blockage to open it up, but couldn’t push through and didn’t want to push harder for fear of rupturing the artery, which could have resulted in death. The doctor went around to the point of the blockage from the back and tried to open it with a wire, but that, too, was unsuccessful.  At this point, Verle and I left from the San Diego airport to fly back to be with Tom.
Tom was placed in ICU with  IV’s and other medication. He was communicating and moving pretty well when we arrived on Wednesday.  On Thursday, November 16, they tried to move Tom down to a regular hospital room, hoping that movement and therapy would help him to function normally again. However, his right hand went numb, he lost his ability to communicate, and they had to move him back to ICU.  Tests the next morning showed that Tom has had a moderately severe stroke.
Dr. Thorell says that Tom doesn’t follow the normal pattern in any way — he is young, has no health issues or bad habits, is a runner, and his body is in excellent shape except for the blockage. Dr. Thorell phoned all over the world for advice, and on Friday, the 16th they started a regimen to raise Tom’s blood pressure to try to get his body to open up the blockage and/or form more or larger collateral arteries.  Since then, Tom has slowly regained most of his speech and most of the functioning of his right hand.  However, from time to time he experiences quite severe agitation and at times has a lot of confusion or becomes “out of it” for a short period of time.  Each time he comes back as strong as before and continues improving.  The doctor says that current tests (November 26) show no more deterioration.  He believes that these episodes are due to the medication rather than to additional strokes.

This information came from Bruce to Verle to me. Bruce and Maureen visited Tom yesterday (Saturday). They found him working on his laptop — doing a program for work. He spoke in complete sentences, very close to normal speech, only occasionally having to stop to find a word. It seems that though Tom keeps having “spells” in which he is functioning very poorly, we are seeing continuing improvement overall in his functioning. His speech has greatly improved from when we were there Thursday. The fine motor skills of his right hand were still weak on Thursday — he had trouble picking up things — but his hand grasp was so strong that my hand was still a bit sore the next morning!

The following devotional thoughts came to me this morning when I was half awake and praying for Tom:

For each of us who follow Christ, our position is clear: “By grace we are saved through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any of us should boast.” Paul often speaks of boasting only of “the cross of Jesus Christ.” Like Paul, we have times when our faith seems weak and we may even have doubts — but our position is in Christ — it’s not based on how close to God we feel at any given moment, or on how much we DO for Christ.

The next verse, a favorite of mine, builds on the above and ministers to me today:
“And now just as you trusted Christ to save you, trust Him, too, for each day’s problems; live in vital union with Him. Let your roots grow down into Him and draw up nourishment from Him. See that you go on growing in the Lord and become strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. let your lives overflow with joy and thanksgiving for all He has done.” (Living Bible – Colossians 2:6-7)

I’m also reminded the He is God and I am not — I have to entrust Tom to Him — God knows what is best and loves Tom even more than we do!

These thoughts are very helpful to me as I struggle through this — I hope that they might be helpful to you, too.
Peggy/Mom/Grandma