Tuesday, August 3, 2010

From July 6th

Kyle had a lot of friends and family visit with him over the 4th of July - it made for a great long weekend. Including a visit with five of the San Diego Padres. It really lifted Kyle's spirits to see so many encouraging faces, from pro athletes, close friends, Air Force Generals and so on.

By this point, Kyle had undergone 8 surgeries and the doctors had just laid in some material to his wounds called Integra. This was the very beginning phase of physical progression for the right leg. This material, used in preparation for skin grafting, actually consists of shark cartilage and bovine collagen. This was a sit and wait kind of point for us, to find out if the Integra would take and if the right leg would really start to heal or not.


Kyle with his Purple Heart - he was awarded this while still overseas in Afghanistan.

Kyle holds up his Purple Heart.

After posing for a photo with the medal, Kyle decided to take it out of the box and have a closer look. It was heavier than I expected.

Kyle takes a phone call while resting under one of his Wounded Warrier quilts - his room decorated with some recent balloons brought in by someone who we became close with during our experience at NNMC, Melissa. She was there with her fiancé at one point in a room next to Kyle. Our prayers and thoughts are always with Melissa and the Wisniewski family.

We did our best to do some decorating for Kyle with some of his favorite garb.

Kyle received many packages with food and kind letters of encouragement - this bag of home baked cookies caught my eye. The care packages were always appreciated.

The nurse walked in with a stack of cards wrapped in rubber bands - we counted 50 in that one day. The support was unbelievable and meant so much to Kyle.

One of my favorite cards - from Grampa Deem.

When military personnel came to visit Kyle in his room, they would shake hands at the end and hand over a coin to him in their handshake, representing their specific unit in the military. Here was a representation of some of the coins Kyle had received.

One coin he liked in particular.

Quick self-timer shot.

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