June 9, 2006

Hi Everyone

I spoke with Kesley this morning...she sounded exhausted as you can imagine, but trying to stay strong. Lots of family members are over there with her and her mom will be staying indefinitely.

They REALLY appreciate all of the emails everyone has sent...but also noted that they might need to limit this due to the overwhelming response...so just fyi that if you send one it may/may not get through (you can still try though). They are staying at the Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki Hotel...(1-800-245-4524) so you could probably get messages through that way if you need to. Kesley said her family has a rule to NOT CALL unless something bad has happened (so they can try to sleep, etc), so I guess the best thing is to just leave a message or send a fax to show your support.

Net net, Dirk is in the healing mode, so we will probably have less updates than we've gotten so far. Don't panic. No news is probably good news. Kelsey is trying to streamline the communication, so most likely Kiki will continue to communicate news when there is some. (BIG KUDOS TO KIKI for all of her help).

The current plan is for Dirk to be transported next Thursday to UCSF, BUT that is contingent upon his status next week. Clearly, they want to make sure he is stable enough to make the trip. Stay tuned.

Here's the status--in no particular order (i took the best notes I could):

- Dirk is weak on his left side, but moving.
- His speech is a bit garbled, but that could be due to the morphine. For the most part he is speaking coherently, albeit with a few hallucinations/random statements
- he's had a fever for the past few days, but they are trying to control it.
- He still has the drain in his brain. They are trying to wean him of this, but so far, his fever spikes when they try to take it out. They might put a shunt (?) in this weekend (fluid then drains to abdomen and is absorbed by the body)
- He had an MRI yesterday and they'll get some results today and might have more insight as to why this happened and exactly where.
- There is weakness in his eyes and he has some double vision, BUT His sense of humor is intact...he even pretended to be a pirate because he's wearing a patch over one eye.

She said he's been receiving the MOST AMAZING care...all the dr/nurses are amazing, which gives them a lot of confidence that he is getting the best care possible.

That's all for not. Keep praying.

Debbie

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