We had a nice holiday. I was able to sit with Daisy while Sara spent time with our other kids. Daisy is slowly but surely moving in the right direction. She was extubated on Saturday, which was a great leap forward. She is no longer sedated, which is good, but she struggles and suffers more, so it is harder on Mommy.

I am just getting ready to go fly. Enjoy the pictures. The hand one is my lame attempt to be like Corey.

While the boys worked on the plane, Zoe harassed Penny in the back of the truck.

Carter and his Friend, Richard helped me polish the airplane yesterday. Look close at the nose wheel and you can see little Teddy lending a helping hand.

Daisy looks pretty good. Slowly, so slowly she is improving. Sara, my detail oriented bride, could tell you the state of all her blood gases, the various drips going into her IV, her baseline heart rate and breathing, the name of every nurse and doctor in the PICU and a myriad other important facts. I'm more of a big picture guy, and I can see just by looking at her that she is getting better.

She woke up a few minutes ago, and as I sang her a little song and gazed in those big blue eyes SHE SMILED at me. I couldn't see it very well on her lips, but that telltale look in her eyes was unmistakable. I whipped out my iphone to get a picture, but just as I brought it online a doctor tapped my shoulder.

It was my neurosurgeon. I had emailed him that I would be at the hospital today, so he dropped by to check on me and Daisy. We chatted for a moment, and by the time I turned back to take a photograph, she had dozed off.

I really hate mice, especially in the pantry. Ours is like a walk-in closet, so my strategy is to flush the varmint out and hopefully step on him as he tries to squeeze by. I've got a less than 50% success rate with this method. I could hear it in a basket with baking supplies on a shelf, so I reached in to move it, recklessly knocking a glass bottle of olive oil off the shelf. It shattered and oil spread out across the floor. Now this is war.

I saw the little guy scamper behind a bag of rice. More carefully this time, I moved it just enough to flush him out, and he made a break for the door. His route took him right through the spilled oil and straight toward me. Trying to step on a running mouse is usually a very challenging prospect, but a quart of extra virgin olive oil on the floor is an excellent way to slow him down. Lets just say I upped my percentage. Sorry if you're squeamish.

Zoe asked, "Is today a school day Daddy?"

"Nope, today is Sunday. No School. Sometimes Sunday is church day." (Okay, so we don't make it to church as much as we used to, usually because by the time we get going we realize how hard we would have to work to get there on time with the kids. Besides, we're Episcopalians, known for flexibility:) )

Zoe comes back with, "Shouldn't we go pray for Daisy to get all better?"

There was no arguing with that. Straight to the shower we all headed. It was a spectacular autumn day here in Northern California, and our drive into town is a two lane road with a fairly solid canopy of (I believe) locust trees for several miles. The crisp blue sky and the reds and yellows had me in a pretty good mood. But as I turned into the church I realized that I had never come to church without my wife before. This is the place where we got married. I wasn't even out of the car and my eyes were already misty.

Most everyone knew our situation with Daisy and offered hugs and offers of help, but of course some did not and would ask, "Where's Sara and the Baby?"

My mouth would open to try to answer, but hey, it runs in the family. You know how some people can be sobbing and still keep speaking, well, not me. My eyes puff up and turn a ghastly red, and It's hard to turn it off once it starts.

The kids went to Sunday school and I headed into the church. Our church is a modern redwood structure with lots of natural light, and I have always really liked that fact. But suddenly I found myself wishing I was in an ancient old cathedral where I could find a dark corner to pray. Instead I went to almost the front pew so that my back would be to most of the parishoners in the hopes that my red eyes would go unnoticed. Being a guy it never occurred to me to have a tissue or something to wipe my nose and eyes.

At the passing of the peace, the kids are brought in from Sunday school for the remainder of the Mass, and Z & T came to me and were PERFECT ANGELS until the end. I prayed for our family and for Daisy and gave thanks for all the support we were receiving. It was a blessed day.

Sara is still with Daisy. She is still on a ventilator. She is stable.

This is our 8 year old Golden Retriever. She has gone from coddled puppy to mostly ignored, but she seems just grateful to be a part of the family. She has guarded over 3 babies, transferring her energy to them with her warm tongue. She must have thought I was going to throw the iphone for her to retrieve as I took her picture.

This morning I had booked a last minute flight from Sacramento to Mammoth Mountain. The weather would have been perfect, and since I am now only taking tylenol I felt ready. I had to make childcare arrangements. Unfortunately, it fell through at the last minute, but these kids are the priority right now, so I don't mind. I'll just watch the Big Game.

Sara asked me to reprint the following, which she wrote to me this morning:

Our deepest thanks and appreciation go out to all of you who are praying, who are helping, who are there for us. No parent should have to experience what we are, but as someone just told me, there are lessons to learn in life. There are difficulties that we must all experience. At the moment, this is the test for me, for Tom, and for our family. Through this sad time, we have learned so much. We have learned the value of family, the warmth of love, the comfort of friends, and to rejoice, even through our tears, in the smile of others - in the cry of the healthy baby outside the hospital, we have learned to rejoice in the frustration of our 2 year old, Teddy, and to marvel and the sheer brillance of our dear Zoe. We are learning how strong we are, and how there are questions to which even the smartest and best-trained doctors cannot find answers.

We continue to pray, and seek your prayers also. We pray for Daisy to get better and better, we pray for peace, strength and understanding. Every night before I leave our dear girl (which is so hard to do) I say a prayer in the prayer book asking for protection for her through the night.

She slept well last night. We are hoping for surgery on Monday to do the muscle biopsy and to also place a g-tube - and then we can hopefully take her off the ventilator. They are currently decreasing her settings, very slowly, and she is breathing some on her own. She is awake at times, and knows me - she tries to cough and to cry. I put my hands on her, because I can't hold her, and I talk to her, I sing to her, I massage her and I continue to love her - that's the most important thing, I continue to love her - to love - to love - to love - because that is the best I can do.

I personally think that we will never get a diagnosis, and then even if we do, the treatment will be the same. But they have convinced us to go ahead with the chunk of leg on the outside chance it could help. I am still clinging to the hope that this virus is just a long lasting one and she will eventually regain her strength to breath within the next couple weeks.

Meanwhile, we are planning Thanksgiving at my beloved cousin's home down there. I will stay here with Z & T until Wednesday.

I have had some unbelievable comments, including a pledge to pray for Daisy at the wall in Jerusalem. Sara is holding up well and I will include an excerpt from her last email to me.

Love, love, love -
this is what I feel for you.

Love, love, love -
this is what I give to you, to Daisy
to Zoe
to Teddy
to Carter.

Hope, hope, hope
is what I am doing for our littlest angel

Prepare for the worst
this is what my "reasonable" and "practical" brain is doing

your love, your love, your love,
is what puts a smile on my face through my tears.

Patience, patience, patience
is what I am having.

Peace, peace, peace
is in our future someday soon.

Healing, healing, healing
is what you and Daisy need.

Please don't come, not until we are closer to some
results. I will need you then, but now is about waiting.
I will need you when we get results, but now I need you
to take care of yourself and our children. Please let me
do this, I need to do this and I don't want to be distracted
by worrying about giving myself to Z and T, and worrying over
you. I want to focus on Daisy and I am doing fine. I am
giving blood today, in the event that Daisy can take from me.
I am pushing for the biopsy today!

Daisy rested well last night. I'll call you later.

Sara has been keeping me updated. Unfortunately, things are not improving. I write this with tears in my eyes. I am so frustrated. They had taken out the tube, but had to re-intubate about 16 hours later. I spoke with the attending physician last night and he said they want to take a muscle biopsy from her leg.

To settle down we went and had dinner with Michael and Patricia and tried to put things into perspective. After eating, we washed our hands and headed back into the PICU to kiss Daisy goodnight and go get some sleep.

We expected her to be sleeping peacefully and that no one would be bothering her for the rest of the night. Instead, we found another doctor had just ordered a CT scan on Daisy's brain. Her pupils were not reacting normally to light, which we were told could just be from the sedative, or could possible suggest some brain injury from the lack of oxygen during intubation. Oh, God, no, please, no.

We waited, emotionally drained, lacking all ability to cope anymore, feeling paralyzed, as they rolled her away for the scan. The new attending, whose name was Sara, tried to reassure us that this was simply precautionary and in all likelihood the CT would be normal. Thankfully she was right.

We came back this morning to a baby on a comeback. The ventilator has given the doctors the ability to access her airway and lungs much more efficiently, so her secretion buildup is much less. She finally is getting some much needed rest since she doesn't have to fight to breath. So we are feeling much better all around.

I am heading back home today for a couple days. I can't wait to see Carter, Zoe and Teddy. Zoe is eager to show me the "purple stitch" on her lip. If things work out, I may fly them all down here to see mom and Daisy.