Afternoon 4/29/10

My apologies for the delay in today's post. Things have picked up so a lot is going on.

To start off boldly, Jill is doing great! On Tuesday she was fully awake for the first time. She has full body function, although the doctors won't let her do much as she needs to be monitored at all times. Her short term memory hasn't been working too well but the doctors feel that this will likely return in about a week.

She has made a lot of progress but is really missing the kids. Allie is able to go see her on a daily basis but the hospital has a "no kids under 14" rule right now. Allie looks about 18 so she had no problems. To try and cheer Jill up, Uncle Dana and I went into stealth mode to try and get Trent into CCU to see her. He sucked his chest in and acted as old and as tall as he could and he got in. We actually caught a lenient group amongst the security folks and the nurses. She was so excited to him! Trent's visit actually is the first recent memory that stuck in Jill's memory and she is now starting to remember more and more. We still haven't gotten Jackson in to see her but thanks to the Black/Phillips family we set up a web cam conference so she could see and talk to him. Both of these interactions were healing in themselves. This is clearly an example that there is nothing stronger than a mother's love for her kids.

Jill's condition is really looking good. She's been sitting up in a chair quite a bit and actually got a little sunlight yesterday when we went to Huntington Hospital in Pasadena to get an MRI on her heart. The MRI results came back positive that everything was normal. The aspiration pneumonia also continues to get better as has her white blood cell count. The cardiologists (she has two now) have stepped in and have now started their tests (the MRI yesterday being the first). Today she will have an angiogram which will look for stoppages in her arteries or any other identifiable injuries to her heart. Assuming this comes out with no blockages, they will perform two more tests which will, without getting into too much detail, see if they trigger the problem again to identify what happened. They obviously aren't trying to start this whole process over again but need to know that these weren't the causes. The cardiologists believe that all these tests will likely be negative but they have to do them. Once all these tests are complete, they doctors will be able to determine what they will do going forward as a solution.

She will likely be moved tonight or tomorrow out of CCU down to the next level of care at the hospital. She still will require nurses that specialize in heart problems but anything with a window, a little sun and a view of the golf course or race track is better than CCU (it has 4 white walls).

She is having a difficult time sleeping right now so the nurses are trying to reduce the number of people that come to see her. I promise the second she is available for visitors I'll let everyone know and we'll figure out some orderly way to get people in to see her either at the hospital or at home. Everything is going as well as possible so keep up your good thoughts.