Baby steps

Mike is still weak and unable to get out of bed, but I'm seeing small signs of improvement. And the best thing of all -- he got to see Julia today.

First the medical update: There were a ton of doctors in this morning. My sister-in-law Lisa was there so I could spend some time with Julia. Basically, they are monitoring his kidneys and his stomach, where they figure the infection is. They're fighting it off with antibiotics, but say it will ultimately get better when his white cells go up. They're starting to go up now.

One doctor said it was expected that Mike would be feeling like he is. He said once the white cells start to increase slowly, as Mike's are, the body can react by essentially getting worse before it gets better. He will probably feel like this for a few more days, then all of a sudden start to feel better. Again, the whole waiting game thing.

Mike was ordered to drink three Ensure "milkshakes" over the course of the day to get some calories and nutrition in him and to try to start getting his strength up. He didn't want to, but he did it. I wanted to jump for joy every time he finished one.

I had been going back and forth all week on whether to bring Julia to the hospital. She can't possibly understand what is going on and I was worried about her seeing Mike like he is. But yesterday, I really felt like he needed to see her in the flesh to remember why he's got to fight so hard. And the doctor agreed.

It went really well. Julia was not at all phased by the surroundings. She was just happy to see her dada. She wanted to get in bed with him so bad. But we sat her in a chair next to him and she drank her juice while he had an Ensure. She also tried to feed him Goldfish. Mike was beaming when he saw her and he made every effort to talk while she was there.

My mom took her home and I stayed and hung out with Mike. He was awake and alert the whole time while we watched a movie, and he even read the newspaper. This sounds like nothing but it was a big deal to me. He hasn't had the energy or desire to do any reading or watching TV this week.

So I'm really praying this means he's starting to turn the corner.

(Also today, we eagerly awaited text messages from Philip updating us about Kris, who was in labor. FINALLY Baby Felix arrived. 7 pounds 5 ounces, to be exact. He is so stinkin' cute already. We are over the moon.)