Saturday, July 06, 2013

Still Here

Ammon is still at PCMC and will be for a few more days. Hopefully by the middle of next week he will be able to go home. The surgeon is pretty adamant about not doing the surgery to close up the hole in the stomach (it's still very large) because he said we would be buying a whole new bag of problems if we did it. He is pretty certain that if we are patient the tissue will eventually close in naturally. Fortunately, that means we would be able to go home and care for him there rather than being in the hospital. Unfortunately, that would mean that he would have to go home with a feeding tube in his nose that would bypass his stomach and with the pic-line to give him additional nutrition for a while longer. Without the g-tube, it will be kind of dicey to see if we can get enough nutrition inside him. He really needs to learn to eat by mouth - enough and quickly enough that it doesn't have to be a 24-hour chore.

He was so devastated when we came in and is so positive and inspiring today that you wouldn't believe he's the same person. I think all the visitors and family members that have called and checked in with him have given him great strength. We've had many, many visitors from the ward and some friends from school come up to see him. People have brought their guitars and have sung to him and that has given him great joy. He doesn't require much to find an inner joy. Today he is talking about his big dreams (dream big, Mom) of finishing high school and going on a local mission. He explained the significance of his name to a Christian Chaplain woman today. He prayed with them, offering the prayer. He is in total love with the ipod that Jess and Jen gave him last night. I think it's been his favorite gift of all time. He told me today that it's ok if he has to go home with a tube in his nose. He'll handle it and he said, "We'll just handle whatever we have to handle." Today he is cheering me up.

What a blessing he is to everybody around him.

2 comments:

Mike and Adrianne said...

Did he get my email? Dad got the CD. He has already listened to it. I had hoped to get it to Ammon already.

The Duke said...

Dad will bring your CD up tonight when he comes up. He said it is really beautiful. He wasn't sure what it was for until he told me it came. Ammon will be delighted to get it and listen to it - over and over and over. :)
Ammon doesn't have access to his e-mail because he can't get to the computer. I'll see if I can find it here and tell him what you said.