May 25, 2010 1141

What a nice day so far. David was, by far, the most clear today. I asked him if he understood what his injuries were and he raised his left hand and wiggled his pinky finger and said "I have this one and I didn't expect to!", he then wiggled his ring finger and said "I have this one and I didn't expect to!" and he went through every finger and said the exact same thing each time. Then he lifted his right arm and said "I have this and I didn't expect to!" and he said that he understood that he had most of his right leg. I explained how much of his legs were missing.
David later recounted the actual incident and clearly remembers being flat on his face and consciously made an effort to roll to his back to get away from the blast so it was not a complete amputation. He expressed a vivid recollection of the actual blast, explaining that in the following moments he sat up to move his body in a direction that would minimize the damage induced to his body from the explosion. He was able to recount the fact that he dragged himself in one direction and was thereafter pulled by his comrades, although he did not say who specifically pulled him to safety, whoever that was we are eternally grateful and thank you with all our hearts. We received a call from the EOD group here in Maryland and was told that his friend Adam was approximately 5 feet away when the blast occurred and his specially designed Oakley glasses saved his eyes completely. He was mainly hit with rocks and dust and had to have 5 stitches. He is really trying to get back out there but they won't let him until the stitches are removed.
A Captain Chilstad from his Afghanistan command made sure we knew that everyone had David in their thoughts.
I just found out that Katherine is Catherine. She was with David until about 2:00 am this morning and typed an email to me and I thought you would like to hear her comments:

Hi Gordon,
In case I sleep in tomorrow I wanted to tell you and Lynette a couple things David was saying tonight.
He was talking with the nurse for a while about how he was seeing a lot of things and hallucinating, he was not overly agitated but he did complain he was "tripping out so hard" and I remembered they recently switched his pain meds or something so maybe there is something they can do to lower the hallucinations, although when I asked the nurse told me it was normal. David did seem to be comfortable when we asked him, which was good to hear.
David continued to speak about his grandmother. He was upset because he thought he had hurt her or potentially killed her and I reassured him that certainly was not the case, but he said she had passed away and he seemed very upset about it. He also kept saying it was her (or someone Else's) birthday.
His left leg was bleeding through the sheets and the doctor came in to try and place some suction tape on it, however she was not able to cover up the entire area and decided to patch it slightly but not redo the entire suction because she felt it was not necessary given his surgery tomorrow morning. The doctor said she had seen much worse bleeding on other patients but that they would keep an eye on David throughout the night to make sure he did not bleed too much. The doctor went on to tell me she had a patient in a very similar, but worse condition than David's a few months ago, and in that patient's case he had started bleeding during the night and they had to rush him to the OR. She drew this comparison to explain how she did not feel David was in that condition and therefore could wait until the morning for the surgery to fix up his wound properly. She also said this other patient was now at Walter Reed and was doing great, she said she recently had seen him in great spirits, doing push ups and sit ups on the work out ball and she told me she felt David was in much better condition than this guy was when she had treated him and she also said she was very confident David would make a great recovery and really thrive in rehab.
The nurse told me David was second to go into the OR tomorrow and that the first surgery was scheduled at 6:30a.m. and would probably go until 10:30-11a.m., so you guys may have a chance to catch David in the morning depending on how accurate that was.
Have a good night, I'm gonna try and get some rest.
Catherine

David was given two units of blood this morning and also received some insulin to bring his blood sugar into the levels they wanted - this all seems very routine to those taking care of him.
David asked for a priesthood blessing. I forgot my consecrated oil but gave him a blessing and reaffirmed the anointing he had received in Germany. I have felt absolutely no need to give David a blessing after receiving word that two worthy Priesthood holders in Germany had given him a blessing. I was so immensely touched that he asked for the blessing. Chaplain Donahue was present for the blessing but is not of our faith. She played the guitar and sang a song to David directly after the blessing. David said "that's a parents love!" He was exactly right because the song was about our Heavenly Father's love.
Brian Cook called me a little while ago and told me of the incredible amount of love expressed in David and our behalf last night at the temple. I particularly thank Bro. Lemon for his prayer.
So many of you wonderful friends. I'm quite sure that, through David's friendships and associations, many many many denominations are praying for him. Just so you know, it is all working - David is progressing very good considering what could have been.
The nurse came in to check his awareness and said "Is this SSGT Lyon?", he said "I am David Lyon are you messing with me?" She said she thought he was messing with her. He then gave an accurate birth date and social security number and introduced us to her. She asked about any pain and he said his left leg really hurt. She asked him to give her a number between 1 and 10 and he said the pain level was 9.8. - you would never have guessed he was in any pain by watching his body language.
We asked about the incident when the corpsman was putting the IV line in wrong and he told us he told that serviceman "You know I haven't been around this that long but I sure know that that's not going to work - you're doing the wrong one!" He expressed some other adjectives about the situation but I had better leave those out of this blog.
I am sooooooooooooooo impressed with David.
I sincerely thank all of you for your expressions of love for all of us.

I Love All of You,

Gordon