{update}

thank you for the sweet calls, emails and prayers for my cousin, Jimmy. Please continue to send them his way as he and his family are very much in need of them. This is an update received from his wife, Natalie. (Natalie, I hope you don't mind that I've posted it here). I know that many of you are amazing in your commitment to pray for those in need, so once again, I'm asking that of you.

For anyone that does not know I took Jimmy into the doctor on Wednesday with severe pain in his left leg. The doctor thought it was his sciatic nerve and gave him a cortisone shot. I asked if it could be a blood clot and so he decided to send him to Mercy for an ultrasound. We had the ultrasound done and they did find a clot in the left leg so he was taken to emergency. They did a CAT scan of his chest and found that he had multiple large blood clots in both lungs as well as his legs. Yesterday they discovered that he also has them in the right leg. He was placed in ICU and yesterday the doctor told us that I saved his life and he likely would have had one of the clots hit his heart, catastrophically, by yesterday. They did emergency surgery yesterday afternoon to put in a Greenfield Filter to catch any large clots and keep them from getting to his lungs or heart. Since he had eaten they were not able to use anesthesia so it was a pretty rough procedure. We also met with the pain management team that was brought in due to the complicated issues with Jimmy's pain due to his past illness. We are considering trying a treatment that they have only tried about 5 times in the last 5 years as many people are not good candidates for it because of their age and heart conditions. Right now they are working on getting the anti-coagulants in his system. It looks like he will be here in ICU at least 7 days. I think there is a good chance we will try the new pain therapy today. Since he is in ICU it is a good time to get him on the medications and be able to monitor his heart, etc., for any adverse side effects and to get the dosage right. They brought in the head of pharmaceuticals and I think this man knows as much or more than the doctors. That is really all we know at this point. Unfortunately, Jimmy is still in a critical state as the blood clots are still a threat to his heart. That is really all we know at this point. Thank you for everyone's kind words and prayers...we appreciate it more than you know. I will keep you updated as I can.