Brett here.

My wife, Madeleine, is no longer in a coma, much to everybody's relief, but she still faces months of recovery ahead of her.  She has awakened from her coma, and miracle of miracles, there has been no lasting brain damage!! It's been nothing short of astonishing!

Sadly, though, she lost a leg, but at least she didn't lose her LIFE.  It could have very easily gone that way.  She will just have to adjust to living life as an amputee; we ALL have to adjust to that fact.  But the good news is this: she will be able to walk again with therapy, so there's hope yet.  It will be hard, but we will do all we can to help her reach that goal.

Right now, though, we have to work on getting her strength back.  Madeleine is very weak and has lost a lot of weight.  We will have to try to get her appetite going again; the sickness she had (flesh eating disease) really knocked the stuffing out of her (and very nearly took her life).

Madeleine is still in ICU, but she is about to be moved to the stepdown (progressive care) ward.  In fact, they are getting her room ready; as soon as they are through, they'll come get her.  She will still be in isolation, and will probably remain so for at least another week, according to the doctors taking care of her.  Madeleine is still on oxygen and is being fed by a tube in her nose, but hopefully that will be gone soon.  She is still on IV antibiotics and will remain so for a while.  They want to make sure that infection is totally gone from her system.

I called my parents and they were as happy to hear the news as I was.  I know Gavin, Tessa, and Owen, our kids, will be thrilled to hear that their Mommy is doing better.  The mood has lightened considerably ever since she first got sick; for a while, it didn't seem that she wouldn't even pull through.

Now we can have Christmas once we get her home.  It will be low key, and it will be very late (after all, it is late January), but we WILL have Christmas.  Heck, we really don't need to have presents: I already got my Christmas gift: my wife's life!  That is the best present of all!!

~Brett Hoskins, Madeleine's husband, Dallas, Texas.