ICU is an understatement for “INTENSIVE CARE UNIT”, not an abbreviation. After resection surgery doctors estimated 4 days in the unit, then out to a regular hospital room. However, they were off by about 11 or 12 or 30 or 50 days. I use these numbers because when you’re going through it you lose track of time/days and it feels like forever. One day seeing Little Buddy in ICU felt like 480 hours. I don’t want to dwell too much on the ICU situation, there were lots not-so-positive moments in there. At times it was very difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel; it seem like we were taking one step forward and two steps back. The ICU doctors and nurses kept telling us that Kai is strong, he’s recovering pretty fast considering everything that he has been through. But we did not and could not see that, especially after all of the setbacks.

Positive Note: Kai is strong, and Kai is a fighter. Kai is a strong fighter, he doesn’t understand “limitations”; and that creates frustration. Those two things coupled drive him to never giving up.