7:35pm

Ron has had two of the three chest tubes removed today. He has had some relief from this.
The doctors are attempting to put in a new A-line. He currently has one in the upper part of his thigh and it is time to have it removed to prevent any infection. The problem they had this morning was that his arms have some swelling due to edema so it is hard to get a good line in.
We have been waiting for his doctors today but they have all been in surgery. We are hoping Dr. Smith can get one in. We still do not know what the echo showed they did yesterday...and given the surgeons have been in surgeries all day...I doubt they have had a chance to take a look at it. It is doubtful we will get much information tonight in regards to this. Tomorrow, Ron should be able to have the third chest tube removed. He slept quite a bit today as he was up a lot last night with the nurses doing all sort of things. We had a wonderful visit today with our dear friends from North Dakota who were down visiting family as well and took the time to make the drive to Tucson to see us. We have missed them so much ...thank you Tim and Joleen...we love you!

Everyone that has stopped by Ron's room today are so excited to see him looking so well....without the breathing machine and his eyes open and him speaking with everyone. People are genuinely happy to see him making so much progress. The machines are also slowly coming out of his room...yesterday is was the ventilator...today they removed another machine that was giving him something to help him tansition to breathing on his own...just another item used to help when patients first come off the ventilator. Next may be the dialysis machine he is on. The renal doctors are planning to run a test on his kidney to see how much it was affected and whether or not it will come back. Once this test is done..depending on the results..will determine if they can remove the dialysis equipment. They have also decreased the amount of IV lines he has ...thus less medications.
It is so amazing to see where he is today in comparison to last Monday....Thank you Jesus!