Thank you for praying - it's working!

Our friend Todd is doing much better - he's still got a long road to recovery, but he is progressing really well. On Friday Trent and I drove up to Grand Rapids to see him. We went into his room and were pleased to see that he was off of life support and breathing on his own. He also was conscious, but he wasn't "all there". His wife Brenda told him who we were and he just looked and looked at us, like he was trying to hard to place us, but he didn't know us. He was so confused couldn't really talk - he would just nod his head and say maybe one word in a whisper. He had no idea what was going on and why he was in the hospital.

As we visited with Brenda, Todd just kept looking at the wires on his arm, and the light (for pulse) on the end of his finger - then he would look at us. Brenda would ask him, "do you know who I am?" and he would nod his head yes, but when she would try to get him to say her name, he couldn't remember it. It was really scary, and Brenda was pretty much freaking out inside.

She told us the entire story which in a nutshell was that Todd went into cardiac arrest, fell face down on the pavement and no one has any idea how long he was without oxygen. His 12 year old son found him, got Brenda and Brenda sent the neighbor kid over for help from his parents (our friends Sherry and Dan). Sherry came over and gave Todd CPR until the paramedics got there. They used the paddles on him several times but it wasn't working - one of the EMT's told Brenda he was gone - they tried again and they got him back. WOW - Todd was actually dead for awhile and he came back. (I've got to pick his brain on that one when he recovers and see if he remembers anything about that experience). Then he got airlifted to Grand Rapids. They have no idea what kind of damage was done to his brain since they don't know how long he was without oxygen.

The good news is that he is progressing much faster than he should be and there's been a huge difference just since we were there Friday night. Yesterday he got out of bed and sat up in the recliner and at soup and jello. He remembered Brenda and he remembered his kids. Today, Trent called and Todd answered the phone in his room - he knew who Trent was and he knew that we have the shack at Silver Lake - so that's INCREDIBLE news.

Our neighbor Wayne is an EMT and he told us that people who go into cardiac arrest only have a 20% chance of being resucitated - so Todd is extremely fortunate. Hopefully it won't be too long before he's back to normal, picking on me, Trent and fixing us a huge dinner around his campfire at Silver Lake.