…To the 4th floor that is. Good news! Kai moved out of the ICU this afternoon. Thank you for all of your prayers this morning for his pain, Kai had a better day and we had a number of great victories including the first smile we’ve seen in a long time.

He met with the different therapists today (speech, physical, and occupational) and the physical therapists helped him stand with our help and holding him up. It was brief but awesome to see.

It seems that resting is hard for him – I’m not sure if it’s pain or side effects of the medicines he’s on (I’ll ask this tomorrow) or a combination of so many things including the fact that it’s just hard to get good rest in the hospital. But, I think what’s hard, and I’m anticipating there is going to be so much more of this, is just feeling so helpless when he’s just moaning and not being able to do anything. He cries out “Mommy” or “Daddy” but at time like these we just can’t bring him comfort and of course as a parent that’s all you want to do, you want to “make it better”.  Nighttime seems to be the worst time for him (he’s been struggling to fall asleep for a long time now) but tonight his moaning sounds less of pain and more of just restlessness and agitation which is a good step!

The picture below is of when Kai’s friend Kailani came to visit today. Kai had a great visit and shared “apple squeezies” with her and the played a game of puzzles on the iPad together. And if you look close at this picture, Kai asked to hold Kailani’s hand and she helped him as the nurse was checking on his PICC line. Sweet, sweet moment. 🙂

Thank you again so very much for your support and prayers today! We are fumbling through this whole thing and trying to learn as we go and also try to just be Kai’s Mommy and Daddy which is taking on new meanings and challenges each day and so we thank God that He’s being our rock and that you all are helping us back up to cling to Him when we feel like we’re slipping or that we might let go. Thank you again.

Kai had a very restful night last night – so so thankful for this. He was kept under light sedation through the night and went in for another MRI of his brain this morning to see how everything looked after surgery. Praise the Lord that everything looked exactly how they expected. In the end, they were able to remove approximately 95% of the large tumor in his brain which is amazing.

They’ve sent the tissue from the tumor off for pathology testing and we’re hoping that by mid-week we will have a final diagnosis of what this disease is and can formulate the treatment plan. Right now they’re saying he probably needs a few weeks to recover from the brain surgery and get as much strength as possible before they will start treatment.

We got to see Kai’s eyes today (admittedly he shuts them as tight as possible when the nurses want to look at them, but I’m ok with that, shows me that strong Kai will and tenacity combined with the stubborn resolve that 2 year olds everywhere have perfected). He’s responded to questions (correcting me on the color of Thomas the Train) and telling Shawn to sing his bedtime songs. He even tried to sit up once when I came in the room.

Kai is also on less medications than yesterday and getting nutrients now from a feeding tube. The little guy definitely has some pain but he’s managing it really well and the nurses here are so good to him and us and trying to make him as comfortable as possible.

His recovery will be day by day, but he made great strides today. We just continue to pray for Kai to be healed and that he can rest and recover smoothly.

Thank you again so so much for all of your support. We truly do feel it and we tell Kai how many people are praying for him and thinking of him – when we start talking about all of you and saying the different names he tries to open his eyes, so we know he hears this. So thank you so much from all of us.