He's Awake!

Well, it has been a LONG 24 hours!!! It is now 2:20 AM on Thursday morning.... A lot has happened since we got the phone call at 1:45 Wednesday morning!!

Joseph has received such AMAZING care here at Emory and the doctors and nurses who have fought for him are my biggest heroes right now!!! They are just so amazing!! They kept us informed every step of the way as the transplant progressed. Things went well, but after the procedure Joseph was continuing to bleed A LOT.... so much so that they had to bring him back into the operating room at about 6:00 last night to do another surgery to take care of the excess blood that was pooling in his chest cavity and to try and stop the bleeding as much as possible. We were able to see him briefly before they took him back into surgery again. That was some of the hardest moments of my life (and I know for his mom, sister, and grandma!!) We all felt so hopeless - but something inside of me just screamed NO! This wasn't going to end this way! I felt something rise up in my heart and I just pointed my finger at Joseph and said, "Joseph McCanne! You shall not die, but you WILL live to proclaim the works of the Lord! You are healed! Your lungs are whole!! You wil die an OLD MAN one day!!" It was strange... as the words came out of my mouth, I almost didn't know who was speaking them. It kind of shocked me, actually. I know that it wasn't me. I didn't have the strength inside of me to do that. I know it was the Lord... He was fighting for us that night!!

They took him back for the surgery and worked for about three hours. They gave him countless units of blood.... it was pretty scary there for a while. But, at about 9:30 Dr. Force (the primary surgeon) came to tell us the good news that Joseph was doing much better! The bleeding had been controlled, his blood was starting to clot finally, and they were able to remove the excess blood that was pressing against his new lungs. Seeing the doctor smile at us made releif just rush through my heart!!

We were able to go back and see him in small groups about an hour later. He was still under heavy sedation, but we were able to hold his hand and love on him a little.

Joseph's mom, grandma, sister and I searched for a place to crash for a few hours and found a WONDERFUL hideaway room close by all to ourselves! We got a couple of hours of sleep and the nurse just called us at about 1:45 AM to let us know that Joseph was AWAKE!! We rushed to his room and although he was unable to speak to us, he wiggled his toes and raised his eyebrows when we asked him questions!! He even raised one eyebrow higher than the other in a mischevious kind of way - he's such a nut!! He's doing so much better now!! They are already slowly weaning him off the ventilator and think he will be off of it completely later today!! WOW!!! That is just AMAZING!!!

Thank you so much for your prayers for Joseph over the past 24 hours!! We are so thankful for so many wonderful friends and family who have surrounded us during this time to cover us all in prayer!! Ya'll are our heroes!! We love you so much!! Pastor Scott Reece said that tonight Facebook was "Josephbook" and he was right!! Every post had something to do with Joseph and I know that he was being lifted in prayer literally across the globe!! THANK YOU ALL!!! Please continue to pray and rejoice with us as Joseph continues to recover over the next several weeks.

Check on the website or Facebook regularly for more updates!!

We're going to try and get some more sleep now if we can - we're so excited!!! God is SO good!!

Much love!
~Kayse (and Adrianne, Sherry, and Gee Gee)