As I sit here at Cleveland Clinic’s rooftop overlook, I can’t help but think about the first time Latasha and I sat here looking out over downtown Cleveland, Ohio. We have been coming to Cleveland Clinic’s Main Campus since 2018. I have had two fantastic assignments with the USDA Forest Service at the Allegheny National…

Today was long for several reasons, primarily because I had a long to-do list of things to accomplish back in Dayton. It’s a three-hour drive, which burned up some valuable time and caused a lot of stress for me. I missed out on some things today that I would instead have been at, but things…

Here is a late update tonight. I needed to return to Dayton to get some essential things we didn’t bring and get the doggos situated for a bit. Thank you to Miss Braelynn for managing the animals and the house in our absence. This young lady is truly the future of incredible young leaders to…

Today was an excellent moment for Latasha. Not only has she passed all her neurological tests and is fully conscious, but she is breathing on her own with no ventilator! Her lab results look great, and her blood gas levels are firm. This is just the beginning of her very long recovery, so we went…

Latasha had a good, uneventful night, leading to a lot of rest and weaning off sedatives. She is fully awake this morning and firing on all brain cylinders. Latasha and I could communicate and converse through blinking, head nods and shakes, hand squeezing, and an excellent app I downloaded for my iPad that she can…

Although we’re not where we would like to be, Latasha had a good day. I must keep reminding myself that Tasha’s been through a lot, and she’s a fighter; she will get through just like every other hurdle we’ve faced. Sadly, there is no photo of her without her ventilator tube. The doctors were finally…

Latasha’s overnight recovery was touch and go with some heart arrhythmia issues that led to having to put her back on a sedative. Latasha was responsive this morning when I visited her, and she squeezed my and the nurse’s hands. Small side note: her nurse last night and today are the sweetest ladies. They genuinely…

What does being prepared mean? The truth is it means so many different things to many other people. Humor me a bit as we take you through a small portion of Latasha and my journey of preparedness, or lack thereof, with the benefit of hindsight. As I write this, I am listening to Randy Travis’…

Today was a prolonged day that yielded little gains; although trying to be glass half full, it was forward and not backward. The respiratory doctors turned off Latasha’s ventilator to see if she could and would breathe on her own, and she did. So that was a good victory, although short-lived because they turned it…

Today has been a slow rollercoaster. Not much has occurred other than slowly weaning Latasha off the sedative to take her off the ventilator. We’re hoping that we can get to this milestone in the next 12 to 24 hours so she can take her new organs for a test drive on their own. This…