An Update on Benjamin

First, thank you, friends for the outpouring of love and support and prayer cover.  It sustains us.  We are humbled by your words of encouragement.  God is so Good.  He is on His Throne and is in control.  Since Sunday night, we have seen nothing short of a miracle.  I want to give you a quick update so that you know how to pray for Benjamin.  While on that topic, have you ever prayed to the Almighty and your words were formulated perfectly?  The prayer eloquent and profound?  To be perfectly honest with you, that's not how my prayers go most of the time.  I was telling Tricia that in the past five days my prayers can be mostly be described as moans followed by the words, "Oh God!"  I can't even put together what I'm trying to communicate to God in an intelligible sentence or plea but Romans 8:26-28 explains this situation in detail.  

Since we've last talked, he's undergone three surgeries.  The doctors feel that there will be no more.  After we left the ICU tonight and headed home, we received a call from the hospital from his ICU nurse at 10:30 PM.  It is normally not a good thing to get a call from the ICU late at night.  They have moved him out of the ICU and into a regular room!  The nurse wanted us to know.

They removed the IV's and oxygen today.  He still has the drain from his spinal surgery in.  He is still catheterized.  They tried to remove it, but he cannot feel the sensation to urinate, so they put it back in.  They think that this could be due to swelling from the surgery and trauma.

Prayer Request #1: Urinate
Prayer Request #2: (Appropriately) - that he could #2 (have a BM)

Prayer Request #3: Pain levels to decrease - his legs, back and pelvis injuries result in pain that the medicine is unable to touch for a while.

Prayer Request #4: The selection of an in-patient rehab hospital for intensive physical and occupational therapy.

They have already begun to work on therapy and everyone is encouraging him to push through the pain. After surgeries on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, on Thursday, they put a brace on him and sat him up in bed!  Only one day after pelvic surgery and two days after spinal laminectomy.  Unreal!

But they weren't done.  Using his upper body strength to push himself up, they stood him up on a walker.  Now his right leg is non-load bearing, but both bones in both lower legs are broken with rods in them and he's standing on them with all the weight on his left.  I'm cringing thinking about it as I type this.

Today, they removed a lot of the bandages on his legs and cleaned the incision areas.  After a liquid diet of only broth because his jaws hurt from the skull fractures, they wanted him to begin with solids to get more protein so he has energy to rehabilitate.  He didn't want to, but ate scrambled eggs and hash browns with Tony Chachere's.  He likes the spice!

Physical therapy came by today, had him "log-roll" to the side and sat him on the side of the bed.

They had him stand on a walker, pivot around on his load-bearing leg...

And he sat in a chair!  They gave him some homework of lifting his arms and moving his fingers.  He has numbness in his right hand and fingers with "pins and needles" sensation.  Please pray for this to diminish.  His right lower leg and foot is a lot slower than his left one, but this is the leg that had the compound fracture.  Please pray that his right leg and foot will heal.  His homework is to continue to move his feet and toes, "pumping the pedal," and trying to bend the knees.  He is working hard to do whatever they tell him.  The doctors and nurses have been outstanding.  Benjamin has been telling them "Thank you" for all that they are doing and saying, "Yes ma'am and Yes sir."  One of the nurses last night told him, "You don't have to call me sir.  I'm only 3 years older than you."

I think we are making fantastic progress.  We know that he has a long road ahead of him, but he has made great strides in a very short amount of time.  So many of you are praying and for that we are so appreciative to have caring, wonderful, faithful friends. We leave this in God's hands and trust Him with the outcome.  Benjamin will have a strong testimony.  Perhaps we will emerge on the other side of this having learned something through the hardship and pain, the fear and the doubt, and will give Him the glory.  Thank you again, family and friends.  We can't say enough how much you mean to us!

Psalm 18:1-6

1“I love You, Lord, my strength.”
2 The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my savior,
My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
And I am saved from my enemies.
4 The ropes of death encompassed me,
And the torrents of destruction terrified me.
5 The ropes of Sheol surrounded me;
The snares of death confronted me.
6 In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried to my God for help;
He heard my voice from His temple,
And my cry for help before Him came into His ears.

What a fitting Psalm!