News for Team Lance Miller, Oct. 8. 2015

For a week, I haven't posted here, but I have been talking to Lance on his cell phone in the Rehab hospital. Every day he sounds stronger and happier and now he doesn't talk much about how he feels at all.  He is caught up in living life again.  The conversation today told me that our niece is living and going to school at the High School Lance Graduated from.  A fact that makes him very proud, and he reminded me, "You too, Dixie Miller Goode, You graduated Cody High School like me."  He also told me he rode the exercise bike and used a medicine ball and had to do laps in the hallway using a walker, not canes.  He told me pretty soon is his birthday and then he can be a murder for Halloween.  Not sure if he wants to be a victim or a killer but he knew what he had planned.  He wanted to hear every detail of where my family spent the day, and what each of us ate for breakfast and lunch nd he wanted to tell me that he was in room 109 in "Your Mom's Hospital, Dixie."  which I think means that he is still at the rehab center where she was, after breaking her hip early this summer, but could possibly have meant he was visiting Mom.  I really need to talk to our other brother because Lance can tell me a lot, but can be very stubborn and unclear when he'd rather talk about something else.  He knows exactly where he is and how he is doing, and is kind of bored by that, so he wants to talk about Thursday night Football, and if I should be Groot or Spongebob for Halloween.

 He has a bit longer attention span for the phone as he is feeling stronger, but still, when I press him on when the Dr. says he will be well enough to go home, suddenly he is telling me, "Oh yeah, I have to go. I'll call you tomorrow."

 Cards can still be sent. And since October 24 is his 40th birthday, Hopefully he will be home by then.  He sounds excited about his birthday, and almost as excited about Halloween but then he becomes quite eloquent as he starts reminding me, "And in November is Thanksgiving, and after that, Pretty soon now, is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty The Snowman and Christmas."  If you can imagine what life as a child with Down's Syndrome is like, and you remember the "we're all misfits" theme of that old Rudolph show, you will understand why, even at 40, Christmas begins and ends with watching the show about the Reindeer who just doesn't quite fit in, but leads the way to Joy.

Lance Miller /PO box 865/ Middleburg, VA 20118

Edited later the same day after talking to my Brother Brett.

I called Brett just as he was getting home from 2 weeks out of town for work, before he even walked in the door of his house.  He had been in North Carolina and in Kansas trying to catch up on details that slip while taking care of sick family.  What he had to say is tempered by the fact that he wasn't there last week to talk to Lance's Dr. but the news from the week before that wasn't the best.  I guess that even though Lance is in a rehab facility, the repair from the abdominal leak between his kidney and bladder appears not to have been totally successful. They are not certain what is still leaking, but Lance is still on a catheter and they were considering moving him to a specialty hospital (I think he said in North Carolina?) that specializes in Robotic surgery because those cameras and incisions are small and therefore a lot less difficult for Lance to recover from, since each surgery has been really hard on him.  Anyway, It sounds like he isn't in the clear yet, and his insurance is getting pickier too, with time limits on his stay where he is.  So when Brett lets me know more, I will let you know what I do.