June 3

Hi everyone. We are to the point we are losing track of time and forgetting the days. Mark is doing well this morning. He was pretty worn out yesterday and didn't do much. He finally got out of bed last night and the entire family took him for a walk in the hall around 10:30. He did well and made it to the next room down the hall. He still isn't walking as far as he was in ICU, but we think a lot of that is due to his drop in hemoglobin and the fact that he just feels so weak.

Mark had a good night. He slept a lot which he really needed. We only had one incident when the NG tube came disconnected on accident and made a mess of the bed around 4 am, so we had the excitement of getting up and cleaning the bed and changing Mark at that time.

Mark is having a little nausea today, but not bad. We are waiting on his labs this morning. If his hemoglobin is stable we should be fine, but if it drops more they may give him some blood. They are trying to remove the oxygen today and may get rid of the catheter. He still has his NG tube and they will leave it in at least until tomorrow. His gut is starting to wake up some though and this is a very good sign.

I spent the night last night with him and Eugenie came over early this morning with coffee and apple fritters from Starbucks. YUM!!!

They stopped the nerve blocks in Mark's abdomen about 3 hours ago to see if he can do without them today. It takes about 3 hours for the medicine to wear off, so we'll see how he does. If he starts having a lot of pain, they'll turn them back on and try to stop them again tomorrow. If he does well, the anesthesia team will pull out the spinal blocks today.

Thanks everyone for all the messages and support. We are making tons of progress. Mark is definitely a star up here in Pittsburgh. God bless!!!!