Cinnamon Rolls, Chili, Filters & Footwork

Yesterday Chris came over to Mom and Dad's house for a few hours.  Mom made cinnamon rolls and chili for lunch, Christian's FAVORITE!  Chris walked from the car to the couch without help.  He also took a short nap on Mom and Dad's bed, his first time in a non-hospital bed for over a month :-).  It was nice getting everyone together someplace besides the hospital for a change.  We took a moment to reflect on what each of us has learned in the last month...  That prayers are powerful, patience in life is key, strong and supportive families are a wonderful blessing, a positive attitude is a necessary tool to overcome life's big challenges and is contagious to everyone around, and that there are so many people out there enduring great challenges in their lives on a daily basis.

The doctors removed the blod clot filter this morning.  A minor procedure that sounds more major when you hear the details...  An incision is made in the neck on the right side.  A camera is sent down the vein so that the filter can be located.  The filter is made of a metallic material (looks like metal, but it's probably some fancy composite), about 1/2" tall x 1/2" wide (cylindrical).  Here's what the filter looks like and where it's placed.

This picture doesn't show it, but there's a little hook on top of the filter.  The bottom of the filter fingers bend outward so that they grab into the walls of the vein.  Along with the camera goes a catheter tube and a fish hook connected to some fishing line (or something like that, you get the picture anyway).  The fish hook grabs the hook on top of the filter, then the catheter tube is pushed down bringing the filter up inside the tube (don't want those sharp filter fingers scratching the vein walls all the way out, OUCH) and everything is pulled back out from there.

Christian says it wasn't painful, more like uncomfortable and not something you'd want to go through very often.  He could feel the whole aparatus traveling through his vein and stopping in his abdomen area to get the filter, then coming back out.  Anyway, this completes the removal of all foreign implants to Christian's body since the accident, except of course the screws and wire in his neck, those won't be coming back out :-)!

Here's some fancy footwork Christian demonstrated for the camera.  The goal is to not touch any of the dividers.