Miracles after the trial of faith!!

So I was feeling pretty down Saturday morning as we left for the hospital. Things seemed to be going worse. They had my dad back up to 100% assisted oxygen and things weren't looking up. I really kept saying in my mind, "have faith, have faith, have faith."

Collin and I get to his room in ICU and my mom is standing there and says to get over there, "he's spelling something!!!" For real, he was totally still, couldn't speak or open his eyes, but was spelling letters on his leg with his finger!!!! My mom was too revved up and kept just looking at his face to figure it out, PLUS the nurse of course was like, nah....it's just a reflex..."they" do this...hahaha. I was like....no way, you don't know my dad. Collin and I were figuring out the letters. My dad was getting sort of frustrated, you could tell, haha! But he would do the thumbs up when we got a letter right.

"I AM THIRSTY!!!!!!!" and "TAKE THIS OUT!!!" (cafiter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ouch!)
We got the nurse to come in a swab his mouth. It helped a little. Then they gave him more meds to put him back to sleep again. Once he was out, my mom and Collin left to get some food and maybe I'm imagining it, but I think there was this moment when my dad lifted his hand just to hold mine.

Oxygen guy comes back, EJ, the most awesome guy ever, he has been moved to 40%, and his blood test came back great, so the doctor wants to take him off and wake him to see how he breaths on his own. This was an interesting experience, but over all, if he stayed calm and concentrated, he did really well. CS and mom get back, Dad starts spelling again, he has to go to the bathroom. Collin tells the nurse, who kicks us out.

We were out in the waiting lobby for like 45 mins, and we were thinking she had kicked us out for good because we kept bothering her with, "what's that beeping? what does this cord mean? why is he doing that?" etc.

A nurse comes and calls us back, surprisingly, and when we get back to the room, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My dad was up, in a chair, totally awake, off oxygen machine, doing great!!!! What a surprise of my life!!!!!!!!!!!!! From then on it all got better and better. He was sort of loopy from coming off the drugs and just saying everything that came to mind, so it was pretty funny. But really, he wasn't being crazy. He was just being super happy, sarcastic, funny dad. He said he felt he could jog a mile. He was saying rude stuff to everyone too, but hey, how often do you get away with that and everyone just laughs like crazy??? AJ, Joseph, and cousins visiting from FL came and it was a great family time.

Now, a hole in the heart issue: the doctor who does the non surgical PLUG (new procedure, has been done by this guy about 300 times) came in, talked to him/us. Hole has definitely been there from birth, and may likely have caused the fribulation. All babies have these holes in the womb, and it is supposed to close up MINUTES after birth, but with a few people, it doesn't. (Crazy to think, baby boy or girl has one right now, too.) Most people don't make it to 51 with them. In the end, it was decided that the doctor would start trying to get a team together immediately, and hopefully will try the plug on Monday. The worst that could happen is that they say, nope, it won't work, the hole is too big. And then they'd have to do open-heart surgery and sew a patch in. The doctor said that either way, he is a strong healthy guy and will recover well.

Well, I hope so!!! My dad will stay in the hospital till then and hopefully not too long afterward. So we'll need all the faith and prayers a little longer. Man, thank you to so many who are so loving and kind and thoughtful. We FEEL your friendship and prayers. It's overwhelming. Though my dad was being sarcastic and crazy funny, he kept giving all the credit to God and saying that for some reason, all these miracles happened and "the good Lord" wanted him to stay around for a while. I'm grateful he's okay. :)