Michael has been eating like a horse.  Even though hospital food is something to be desired to most people, he's been inhaling it.  He has been eating everything in sight; he cannot seem to get enough!  LOL  

Dr. Dinh has taken him off the last remaining tubes: he is completely tube-free; he looks like himself again, save for his mussed up hair and the surgical scar zippering up and down his chest.  He will probably have some discomfort/minor pain in the surgical site for some time to come, but each day that goes by, the pain is getting to be less and less.  It will probably be six weeks or more before he is completely healed.

Michael has been having physical and occupational therapy, as a means to build up lost strength from the time he came in.  He is rather weak and tires easily.  That's to be understandable: he went through a traumatic event that could have very easily killed him.  It knocked the stuffing out of him (or tried to).

Now the next order of business is to try to convince his cousin, Henry, that the incident was only an accident.  Poor Henry has been scared of facing my son, for fear that Michael will hate his guts for doing this to him.  If I know Michael, he will probably forgive Henry and blow it off; they have always had something of a close relationship.  Henry has been extremely depressed and preoccupied with death/dying; he has been worried that he would lose his cousin.  

Maybe if Henry sees Michael is going to be okay, his mood will change.  Lord, I hope so; this is something no teenage boy should ever have to experience!

When we get home either today or tomorrow, I know a certain little boy who is going to have the Christmas of his life!  We still haven't taken our decorations down!  People look at us funny because it's spring, and yet we still have our house looking more like Christmas.  There's a reason behind that.  Our Christmas was put on hold because we didn't know if Michael would even survive his injury.

The mere fact that Michael has survived is a miracle.  God had His hand on our boy, and He got us through a very scary, dark time in our lives.  He is going to use our son's accident as a way of reaching others with the gospel of Jesus Christ; people's lives are going to be changed because of this.

There will probably be one more update on Michael in the coming weeks; then we can get back to living our lives the way we were before the accident.  The notoriety was nice, but it will be good to get back to normal.  I am more than ready for Michael to get his life back!

~To be continued.~