Good News...no GREAT News!

First- Nate, Mom and Dad want to thank all of you for your faith, prayers, support and the positive influence you all are in our lives. You have helped us so much. Nate came out of his final wound vac change this afternoon. The anesthetologist put some special numbing medicine on the open wound which helped with the pain. Anyway, the great news is that tomorrow afternoon, the Surgeon will take Nate in for his final operation, and close the wound. They will leave a couple of drains in the wound to make sure no infection is left. The next big hurdle will be for Nathan to gain strength so that he can move in and out of bed on his own or with minimal help and be able to walk around with minimal help. He also will be going home with a feeding tube until he can eat enough and tolerate enough calories and nutrition. But as a family, we are delighted. If all goes well, he will be able to go home around the middle to the end of next week. (hopefully in enough time for Super Bowl)!!!!

We so much appreciate all of you, friends, ward family, student body officers at BHS, staff and facility, the BHS Seminary and staff, family and neighbors., plus my "new friends" in Georgia and Arizona. .(people who do not even know us) who have been there for us and have helped us so much. We love you all and wish you the very best.

High Fever Explained...

Nate has been very sick for the past few days with a high fever and nausea. Last night they finally figured it out. He has a blood yeast infection because of his pic line. They had to remove the pic line and tpa (which is his food drip). He now has a regular IV so he can receive antibiotics, etc. Hopefully they can see some improvements in the next 24 hours. Please pray for him that the meds will work and it will not turn into sepces. Also if he can start to eat enough they will not need to put in another pic line.
They now think that it is the yeast infection that is making him so sick, probably not the flu. (don’t know if that is good or bad?) The Dr. said that it just beats you up making you feel like you have been run over by a truck.

Flu Bug going around the pod...

Nate wasn't feeling well on Thursday due to a flu bug that had seemed to go around the pod area where he is in the hospital. Some employees and patients seemed to get sick to their stomachs and have body aches and fevers. Nate was one of those and it is thought that he may be dealing with the on-set of pnemonia. On top of not feeling well to his stomach due to the flu he also has air bubbles in his abdomen that are causing him some pain. The Dr.'s have said that his bed sore is getting deeper so he needs to be up and getting around a little bit more. They think that he will be able to be stitched up in about 1-2 weeks and then be on his way home!! Hopefully all will go well.

More update

On Monday the Dr's. checked Nates recovery, and said that a few places aren't developing, but it is coming along.
If Nate is eating a moving on his own he can go home by the weekend, however they won't plan to close him up for about 2 more weeks, so that would mean every-other day going in to the hospital to get his wound vac checked and changed.

Nate showing the wound vac

Friday update a couple days late....

They changed Nate's wound vac and the tissue is showing some improvement, however they have left him open for the time being. The Dr. will re-evaluate later this week, and they would like to start to phase him onto a diet soon.

Not much news, but in this case I would say that no news is good news!

Good News...

He did well in surgery this afternoon. The tissue is looking good and it looks like it is beginning to heal. There are still a few spots that they are watching. He will have another surgery on Fri. to evaluate what to do next. For the time being they will keep him in ICU to help manage the pain. He is uncomfortable but food is beginning to sound good to him. This is great because nothing has sounded good to eat for over a month. The bad news is that he cannot eat or drink anything right now.

Nate w/ hot packs to ease the pain

Nate w/ decorated ceiling tile

Nate w/ Bekha and Bridger

Nate in the ICU with two of his really great friends!

Photo of Nate and dear friends....

Visit to the ICU

This afternoon Nate was put into the ICU to manage his excrutiating pain with med's that can't be administered to him in a regular hospital room. Nate will be going back to the OR on Wednesday to check his open wound and again on Friday to make sure he is good and healthy before they close him up.

Frustration in Recovery

This morning the Doctor's went in to close-up the wound, while in there they checked his other wound and found infection in the first one. Now both are filled with packing. He has been told he will have to lay flat on his back until Wednesday, and that he will not be released for a minimum of two weeks. Not exactly what we wanted to hear, or even close to what we wanted to hear. Please continue to pray for Nate, we love him dearly!!

Jan. 6th - Jan. 9th.

On Wed. Nate had a mini surgery where they replaced the sponge and vac in his open wound, and they checked on the progress. Everything went well with the procedure. They will do this again on Fri. They have to put him out for this procedure because it is very painful. If all goes well with the repacking on Friday and everything looks good on Monday. They will take him into surgery and completely sew up the wound. Right now the open wound is 5 in long by 2 in high and 1 ½ in deep.

Our prayers for this weekend is that all will go well with the procedure on Friday and that the infection will be cleared out so that they can have surgery on Monday.

Nate is retaining fluid because of all of the medications and his body functions are moving VERY SLOWLY.

He is now able to take minimal clear liquids and has been able to finally eat 1 popsicle and ½ a glass of water. This is not the way to diet.

He has been given a new airbed to help with the pressure sores but still has to be turned very 2 hours, even through the night.

His goal for today is to get up and walk out his door to the nurses station.



Mom, Dad and Nate especially, appreciate all the prayers on his behalf. They are grateful for everyone's concern and especially for Nate’s special friends who are a constant in his life. They have done wonders in lifting his spirit as well as theirs.

The Starting Point

It all started when Nate got Lymes Disease in 2007, things progressively got worse and was finally diagnosed with Lymes Disease after quite some time. The antibiotics which he took to fight the Lymes Disease actually ended up doing harm that he wasn't aware was happening until he was quite sick again in the spring/summer of 2009. He ended up with Ulcerative Colitis. He then had his colon removed in late November of 2009 and went back in for a follow-up surgery late December 2009 to have his small intestine reattached. Following that surgery about 3-4 days later ended up with intense pain and found the surgery to reattach things didn't go as well as hoped. His small intestine was now leaking at the point where it was reattached and he had infection in much of his insides.

Nate The Great isn't feeling so GREAT!

Nate is still in a lot of pain, since he had to go back into surgery late Saturday night 01/02/10 to take care of a leak from his small intestines. The Drs. had to open his belly up from his groin to past his belly button (about 10 inches long) and cut out the bad part of the intestines, sew them back up, then clean out his abdomen. They then opened up the original incision from November, where the hemotoma leaked and cut out the tissue that was being eaten up by infection. They have now put in a wound vac, which is a sponge type of dressing, with a vacuum hose attached to it, that keeps a constant suction on the wound and drains any infection out. Today, they have now found out that he has a bed sore on his tail bone area, and they want him to lay on his side, which is really causes him a lot of pain. They also ran out of pain medicine in the pain pump and he hasn't had anything for at least 40 min....he is so miserable.