Fifth Day - Second Update

Greetings everyone! So here's the skinny on Jon. He will be released from the hospital tomorrow afternoon. We have his follow-up appointment with Dr. Miller on Monday at 3:00 pm. We will be flying home on Tuesday. How great is that!!!! Things have gone so well it makes me a little frightened. I think someone is looking out for Jon. Today has been very very busy. Jon's been up several times walking, he has had his CT scan (I was confused about that, he has his echocardiogram tomorrow, not today). We have met with a cardio rehab nurse and learned a bunch from her about what's good, what's not good, what he needs to start doing and what he needs to stop doing. One thing I know he will struggle with is stress as he is a chronic over achiever. We also met with a neutrtionionist (the heck with it, I can't spell!) and Jon will be on a "no salt added" diet for the next 6 weeks to 3 months. We also had a surprise visit today from Dr. Miller who stopped for a few minutes to chat with Jon. He is just the most amazing doctor I think I have ever met. He really cares about his patients and their wellbeing. We are so blessed to have been under his care, steady hand and engineering mind. Jon had the wires removed today as well. This was kind of cool. They leave in 2 wires that are placed under the first few layers of his heart and run them down through his skin coming out a little bit above and to the right of his belly button, they are called pacing wires, so that if Jon's heart needs a little electrical help, the wires are already there. Anyway, to get them out the nurse simply gives a little tug and pulls. It doesn't really hurt much just feels weird. They Jon has to lay in bed for 1 hour before getting up. He is just finished with his hour and I believe he and Dad are taking a little stroll along the hallways. By the way, Dr. Miller said that Jon's CT was "perfect"! Well, I better get going. Mom and Dad are going to drop me at the hotel. I need to pack everything up and be ready to move into the larger room tomorrow. Then I plan to call the airline and talk to them about changing our tickets to next Tuesday. It's going to cost us to change our return date but we don't care, we want to come HOME. As Jon said earlier today "I am so ready to be done with this". Then I will have to talk really sweet to the airline to ask that we get handicapped seating so Jon can stretch his legs out. It's not good for Jon to be cramped up right now and being 6' 3" in a regular airline seat, his knees are darn near in his arm pits. I'll write more later. Thanks to everyone. deb