UPDATE ON NORRIS 9-4-06

The latest email from Janis Galatas about our loveable hero, SFC Norris Galatas, and his recovery from major surgery at Walter Reed:

Norris is getting better every day! I have to stay with him 24/7 to keep new nurses from pulling out a picc line, forgetting to give his pain meds, trying to stick a vein to draw blood (that is wha tthe picc line is for!!) and just in general.......we family members have to stay close to protect our loved ones from the nursing staff. His JP drains are out and his belly has only two little open holes...one where the ostomy was and one where they opened his incision and clean and drained the infection...both holes are packed wih gauze....just gauze...only a little weeping of the tissues there. His incision looks great. He has only the feeding line and the IV line going through the picc line in his heart. When he finishes the food line tonight it will go away and they only use the IV line for his anitbiotics to go through. He had a 6" subway sandwich last night and kept it down. He is wanting to eat if only we had something he WANTED to eat! LOL! This place is dead on holidays and weekends, and the cafeteria food is horrible. He is living on "Boost" and a bite of this and that. He can handle the juices and stuff too. He is drinking lots of water and walking all over the hospital. The docs said if he can finish the food bag tonight and eat something, maybe we can go "home" to Mologne House tomorrow or Wednesday. It's really too early, but BOTH of us are sick and tired of the hospital. We opened his big bag of goodies PJ sent him and it was all milk chocolate! He LOVES IT! We shared with soldiers, docs and nursing staff and they all loved it too. Our best buddy and best medic "Friskie" grabbed the red-white-n-blue carmel popcorn right off the bat!! LOL! I'll post an up-date soon....right now I'm dead...no sleep. But we family members have to stay with our soldiers 24/7 to protect them from the new nursing staff who try every night to kill him! One nurse came in with the little purple tourniquet to draw blood and we both went balistic...hey, hey, hey what are you doing? This is why Norris has a picc line in the first place!! (Oh, I didn't know he had a picc line......DUH! Why didn't she wake him up and say Mr. Galatas I need some blood for the lab...and he would have shown her the port to suck it out of!!) His red blood count won't come up and the docs don't know why....DUH...every morning at 4:45 am a nurse comes in and sucks five vials from his heart artery...vampires. So I am not going to let them pull the picc line until after they give him one more unit of blood...no sense in getting to Mologne House with evrything out and then needing a unit of blood....and trying to find a vein...there aren't any. Well, he is calling on the phone, so I'll run back over to the hospital...I've been gone two hours getting a shower and trying to answer three full pages of e-mail. I got one from a retired Army soldier in BRAZIL!! He is reading Norris's story on the web site! WOW! Love you guys...pray for wounds to heal, infections to go away and food to stay down! Love you all! Janis