Heather's Report on John's Progress - Keep Praying!

Hola family and friends,

There Is a lot of good news from Kernan. As I mentioned before dad is undergoing 3 hours of therapy most days. This breaks down into an hour each of 3 kinds of therapy-physical therapy (pt), occupational therapy (ot) and speech therapy (st). In ot therapy they are mostly focusing on his upper body. Most of the time the leg comes back before the arm. He does feel greater amounts of pressure on his left arm, but cannot feel gentle touches. He also has trouble understanding where his arm is in space, as this is a much more subtle sensation.

In st they are concentrating most on his swallowing at the moment. He had a swallowing study done today where they x-rayed his throat to see what exactly is happening. What they found is that one of the throat muscles, that was damaged during the stroke, is hanging in the way. Not only is it causing a sensation of him having something stuck in his throat, which is why he is clearing his throat often, but it is also blocking the way for him to swallow down the esophagus. Instead, it creates a cavern for it to then flow into his lungs and possibly cause aspiration pneumonia again. They will be starting with electrode stimulation, either tomorrow or Monday, to get those throat muscles working again. For now he still has the feeding tube into his stomach.

During pt they are mostly concentrating on his lower body. As in standing again or learning how to reposition his body. However, this repositioning of the body flows into all of the forms of therapy. His center of gravity is off. Where most of us know how to balance ourselves, dad will have to relearn this. To him it feels as if he is holding himself up properly when he is actually leaning to the right. This is because he has forgotten the left side of his body. So his center of gravity, as he feels it, is centrally located on his right side. As he remembers his true center, and is taught to fight his now natural urge to lean, he will start to reawaken his left side.

Besides the feeding tube, the only other tube he is sometimes hooked up to is oxygen. This is mostly in the evening after a long hard day. It is difficult for Dad to keep his blood properly oxygenated with his left lung being diminished. When he is energetic and able to be more aware of his breathing, his oxygen levels have been fine.

Don't forget:
No eating and drinking in front of Dad, as he is unable to do so himself.

Please be his advocate when you are visiting. If he needs a nurse, you may need to help him get their attention. The call button he has at his disposal seems to work best.

See you round the hospital.
H

John May Move to Stroke Rehab Today!

Here's Heather's latest update on her dad (8/11):

This just in: Dad's white blood cell count down today.

Sorry this is going out so late. The television distracted me tonight. It was so nice to veg for a while. We are hoping dad will be moved to kernan tomorrow. Dad has to be without a sitter for at least 24 hours, according to regulation, for this to happen. Currently aunt Susie is at the hospital. She offered to stay overnight again for us. Thank you aunt Susie. Everyone has been so wonderful at rallying around john so far. The family support system has not faltered. Thanks much.

I will be heading in at around 7am tomorrow. Since the sitter was released at 3 pm today, I am hoping the moving process will start tomorrow late afternoon/ early evening. We will see. One step at a time.

Here is the web address for the rehabilitation center we are shooting for:

http://www.kernan.org/rehabilitation/

See you soon,

Heather

Keep those prayers coming! Larry and I continue to pray through the intercession of Fr. John Hardon for a full recovery. When we visited on Sunday John was awake and alert. I put holy water blessed by Father on his fingertips and he made the sign of the cross. Then Larry and I prayed the rosary. He joined a little but mostly rested and even nodded off for fifteen minutes or so. We got a picture of him with one of the sitters, Maddy, who was an absolute delight. Thank God for angels like her and another sitter I didn't meet named Beatrice, I think. May God reward them for being ministering angels.

Status update on John -- Keep Praying!

From my niece Heather, John's daughter, sent yesterday:

Dad is doing much better today. He extubated himself again this morning (the 6th). They were already planning on weaning him today too, just like yesterday. He expedited the process. Then, he did so well that they removed the ventilation system from his room. Therefore, he is also off of the sedatives. We are all hoping he will be back on the 6th floor, which is where the stroke ward is, by tomorrow sometime. It has been a good day so far.

So keep those prayers coming. We're looking forward to a full recovery for John and many more years serving the Lord and enjoying his family, like he and his youngest son were at this family wedding last October.

Love you, John!

Please Pray for John through the Intercession of Fr. Hardon

Last Wednesday my brother, John Scheider, had a serious stroke that left him paralyzed on the left side and blind in his left eye. He's been doing well, but had a setback on Monday morning. The doctor thought he had a blood clot in his lung, but after the MRI was negative, they diagnosed him with pneumonia, moved him into AICU (Acute Intensive Care Unit), and put him on a ventilator. I went up to the hospital yesterday. John is lightly sedated and was asleep, but his color looked good, he has a strong heartbeat, and his blood pressure is in the normal range. Larry and I prayed several decades of the rosary for his recovery.

We're asking for healing through the intercession of Fr. John Hardon, a very holy Jesuit priest who died in 2000. Today is the feast of the patron of parish priests, St. John Vianney, and I am again asking Fr. Hardon's intercession for John's complete healing. Fr. Hardon had a great devotion to the Blessed Mother and the practice of using her miraculous medal. Fr. Hardon said he would not have been where he was if he had not seen miracles throughout his priesthood. He used to relay a particular story of a miraculous cure through the Blessed Mother and her miraculous medal.

I asked my pastor to bless a medal yesterday morning after Mass and I pinned it to John's sock. I also blessed him with the sign of the cross with holy water blessed by Fr. Hardon which I received while attending a retreat he gave the year he died. A friend also loaned me a first class relic which I laid on John's hand while Larry and I prayed. Don't misunderstand. All of the devotional practices have no power in themselves. Like the blood on the doorposts that marked the houses of the Israelites in the Old Testament, they are simply outward sign's of our faith. But even the secular world has confirmed the power of prayer.

Interestingly, today's first Mass reading was about the power of intercessory prayer. God punished Miriam and Aaron for their jealousy of Moses who was described as the "meekest man on the earth." Miriam became a snow-white leper. Moses immediately petitioned God for his sister's cure. In tomorrow's reading we will hear how God responded to Moses' intercession by wiping out the offense of Miriam and Aaron and curing Miriam's leprosy.

I am praying for John through the intercession of another Moses, Fr. Hardon. I hope those reading this message will join me. You can find the prayer here.