AWESOME NEWS that we've all been waiting for!

This just in from Janis Galatas:

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Hello friends and supporters!
The Doctor was thrilled with the way Norris is healing and he said the two open wounds look great! So he authorized 30 days of convalescent leave and Norris got happy feet....he looked just like a horse at feeding time who had slipped his halter! The wound vac is gone and he is free. I asked about things like riding the lawn mower and doing "stuff" around the house and he said "fine...just wear the binder". So we'll be flying into Meridian around 10:00 am (unless a plane is delayed). [Kat's Note: With the current icky-looking weather here in ATL... that is possible... good luck, guys!!!]

We made the acquaintance of two wonderful people from the Lutheran Church of Saint Andrew in Silver Springs, MD and they brought me a "wrapped in prayer shawl ministry" shawl! It is soft and beautiful and Bobbi said every stitch was knitted in with prayer for well being, healing and recovery for a particular soldier or family member. I sure felt wrapped in love when I put it on. I had on my navy blue scrub top, too, and it is navy blue with grey highlights. So I told Bobbi and Greg about our buddy Eric Sundell who was in the room next to us on Ward
68...how he bled out with a stomach ulcer and was rushed back to SICU....then got better and moved over to Mologne House...down the hall from us...and again, Eric fell and threw a blood clot to his lungs and was rushed back to SICU! Poor Sonya (his sister) was in tears yesterday morning and I hugged her and said we would pray for Eric and meanwhile, Bobbi said she would start immediately on a prayer shawl for Sonya. We ran into Sonya this morning coming from Breakfast and she looked exhausted. I told her about Bobbi and Greg
and about the shawl...she looked relieved. She told us she didn't know how many more "crashes" she could go through. I know the feeling too well.

We will meet with the Commander of the hospital tomorrow at 10:30 am, to discuss the complaint I never filed. I agreed to talk with him so he won't be "out of the loop" about what happened to Norris ....but I don't want to put anything in writing unless he insists. The command structure needs to know how the civilian staff are treating soldiers....not with the respect and honor they have earned on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. No family member should have to sit 24/7 with their soldier to protect them from the ignorant nurses at WRAMC. (I use this word in its true meaning....staff don't have a clue as to what a patient has been through...they need to assess their patient FIRST, before throwing him/her around on a bed)...I have several examples to show. Eric is just one. I will miss feeding the Koi in
the Healing Pool, (they will eat out of my hand now), the birds eat the birdseed I bought for them (but they still prefer the pizza crust, bread and donuts the soldiers throw them) and the black cat still won't show himself, but he eats the cat food I leave for him....and would you believe we saw a fat little racoon this morning going to the trash can...and we walked right by him and he never showed fear of us! Yancey says the soldiers lay on the ground on their backs and put bread on their chests and the racoons (13 of them!) come and get the bread! Any thing to amuse a bored soldier. So many of them are still here after 18, 19 or 20 months!

Norris will meet his sleep clinic appointment on October 19th when he gets back up here. (Patients were discussing his snoring in the waiting room this morning because he went to sleep...several of them said their snoring was very similar to Norris's and that they needed help breathing at night....they highly recommended the sleep apnea screening for him). So we will come home and try to enclose the barn and store 400 bales of hay in there for the winter. Then we hope to buy a house and move out there with the horses. Bobbi and Greg were very moved by the story of the 2/114th FA coming down and building our fence for us. They have been following our story on the web and thought that was just great that they would do that for a fellow soldier. They are military and Greg is retired from the Army Band. (He played the Saxaphone!) Our world keeps getting smaller.

Thank you for your prayers and support. We are so blessed and we are grateful.

Janis and Norris at WRAMC