Yesterday was a big day for Kevin. For about 45 minutes, Kevin breathed with significantly less assistance from the ventilator. Normally, the ventilator does all of the breathing for Kevin, forcing his lungs to take breaths. Yesterday, for 45 minutes, the ventilator still provided air for Kevin’s lungs, but did not force him to take breaths. While Kevin said he did feel short of breath, all of his signs were normal, which is very encouraging. This is an important step for getting Kevin breathing on his own again.

Not much else to update you on, but we wanted to share the good news.

Monday was a quiet day for Kevin.  He was up in his chair for a good part of the day, which is great because it gets him out of the routine of just being in bed and helps him avoid pressure sores.

Kevin also underwent two procedures yesterday. The first was to help his stomach adjust to the feeding tube. The second was to check out his lungs to make sure there are no problems with his airways. These procedures will help Kevin stay comfortable and help to  prevent infection and pneumonia, which is really important to keeping Kevin healthy.

Kevin will continue to be on the ventilator until he is able to breathe on his own. He continues to work at it, but it may take some time before he is able to speak.

We continue to encourage visitors, but understand that it might be tougher to come in now that the holidays are over. We also appreciate your understanding when visiting —  we don’t have a set schedule of when the doctors and nurses will need to work with Kevin privately, so he may be unavailable.  We will continue to do our best to give everyone advanced notice in case they plan on visiting.  Please feel free to reach out to us in advance if we haven’t updated the site yet and are planning to come down, especially from a distance.  We want to make sure Kevin gets a chance to see you. Visitors always seem to get him smiling.

News coverage of the Kevin’s fight has also continued.  The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn’s student newspaper, ran an article today and will run another on Wednesday. We appreciate all of the help the media have given to get the word out and connect us with great resources and support.

That’s all for now. We’ll have another update soon.

Not much has changed over last few days. Kevin had a good day of rest yesterday. He had a slight fever, but the rest helped him get rid of that. He’s back to a normal temperature.

Now that the holidays are over, we should get a clearer picture of his surgery schedule and what’s next for Kevin over the next few days. We still think he will need an additional surgery to stabilize his neck. We don’t know when that will be, but we’ll keep you posted as things change.

Right now, Kevin’s got a good mustache going. His visitors think it looks pretty good, so he said we can keep it for a few days.

Joe (Kevin’s dad) should be at the hospital throughout the week, and Joe (Kevin’s brother) should be there frequently as well. Chris has headed back to DC for work, but will be back on the weekends. You can find us in the West ICU waiting room if you’d like to visit.

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! Yesterday, the Nearys took over Jefferson’s ICU waiting room with a full Thanksgiving dinner, and we’ve got a lot of visitors today. We’re calling it “Occupy Jefferson.”

Yesterday was a very good day for Kevin. He was in a chair most of the day, hanging out with visitors and watching football. He’s able to communicate a little bit better, which has helped him resume his normal routine of making people laugh. He seemed to really enjoy the visitors and he fell asleep pretty quickly last night.

The most encouraging news is that Kevin was able to breathe for a short period of time off the ventilator. He’ll need to do a lot of work to get to a point where he can breathe entirely on his own, but it’s encouraging that he has control of some of the muscles he needs to do so. He exceeded expectations, which didn’t come as a surprise.

Most likely, Kevin will still have to have at least one more surgery on his neck. He will probably be in the ICU for a week to ten days after that procedure. Beyond that, we’re not sure of any specific timeline, but we know that he’ll be in the hospital for a bit longer, followed by a long time doing rehab.

So that’s the latest. We will try to keep you posted with updates on major events over the next several weeks. It’ll be a long road ahead, so we appreciate your support for Kevin and our family. If you’ve sent us an email, we’ve most likely read it but haven’t had time to respond yet — we just want you to know we appreciate your thoughts and offers to help. We’ll get back to you soon!

Thank you all again for your support.

-Chris

Last night, the doctors removed both the feeding and breathing tubes from Kevin’s mouth. He’s still on the ventilator, but he’s able to communicate more easily by mouthing words and whispering a little. It’s a lot easier to understand him now, which is really great.

We’ve always encouraged visitors, but now that Kevin is able to communicate more easily and won’t be recovering from procedures, this holiday weekend would be a good time to see him, we think. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised because it’s Kevin, but he’s in pretty good spirits and is already chatty.

We will let you know if anything changes, but if you’ve hesitated to visit, please feel free to come. Details for visiting are available on the “Visiting Kevin” tab above.

As a family, we are tremendously grateful for all of the support you have shown us over the past week and a half. And more than anything, we are really thankful to have Kevin with us this Thanksgiving.

We wish you all a safe and happy holiday!

The doctors have decided to do another procedure for Kevin this evening to help increase his level of comfort. Kevin will undergo a minor procedure to put in place a tracheostomy tube, which will allow the doctors to remove the breathing tube. This should make Kevin much more comfortable. 

Kevin still won’t be able to talk right away — that will come when he is completely off the ventilator. But this will greatly increase his comfort level, and it is the first step in the process of getting him speaking again.

The procedure will be done this evening, so we do not know when or if he will be able to have visitors tonight. We will be in the waiting room if anyone does stop by. If you’re reading this and know of anyone who’s planning to visit, please let them know.

That’s all for now. Kevin has undergone a lot and he’s tired, but does not seem daunted.

We wish everyone a safe and happy Thanksgiving. As a family, it’s clear to us that we have a lot to be thankful for — from the enormous amount of support we’ve gotten to the mere fact that Kevin’s with us and will continue to light up our lives in the future.

Travel safely!

-The Neary boys

Over the past few days, Kevin has had some minor incidents with his heart that have concerned the doctors. As a precautionary measure, Kevin will be set up with a temporary external pacemaker later today. This will make sure his heart rate remains at a steady level.

This is a relatively minor procedure, but we wanted to let everyone know because Kevin may not be available for visitors later today.

Kevin has a number of procedures ahead of him this week. Unfortunately, the timing of these procedures is unclear since the recovery time for each procedure determines the timing of the next. We will try to keep you as updated as possible. We still encourage visitors — we just ask that you check with us at the waiting room before going back to see Kevin. One of us should be back there throughout visiting hours (11-8).

I’m sure all of you have seen by now that the police have the suspect in the case, Christopher Easter, in custody. We are so grateful to the Philadelphia Police for their work finding him and taking him off the streets.

Stop us if we sound like a broken record, but we have been overwhelmed by the amount of positive support Kevin and our family have received from all of you. It’s heartening to know that there’s so much good in the world despite the evil actions of one individual.

Kevin’s surgery today went well. The surgeons put in a plate to help stabilize his spine. The doctors at Jefferson will monitor him over the next few days to see how he responds and recovers. Once he has recovered, it’s likely that Kevin will undergo another surgery to further stabilize his neck and remove bone fragments.

Once the procedures on his neck are complete, Kevin will be able to undergo the tracheostomy and feeding tube procedures. That means that Kevin will continue to be on breathing and feeding tubes until at least later this week. While it’s frustrating that he won’t be able to talk, we understand that the doctors at Jefferson want to be very careful at this delicate stage.

As Kevin undergoes these procedures, it’s important for him to get his rest. We still encourage visitors, however, so we just ask that you check with us at the waiting room before going back to see Kevin. One of us should be back there throughout visiting hours.

Tomorrow should be a light day, as Kevin recovers from today’s surgery. We will update you once we have a sense when the next procedure will take place.

-The Neary boys

Update: Kevin’s surgery has been bumped up to noon. If you were planning to come visit today, it may make sense to try tomorrow. Sorry for the last-minute update!

Kevin will undergo surgery later today to remove bone fragments and stabilize his neck. The surgery is slated to begin in the late afternoon, so it wouldn’t make sense for any visitors to come after about 2:00 p.m. or so.  The surgery is expected to last many hours, so we may not have an update on how it went until very late. We will get one posted as soon as we have more information.

Meanwhile, we are still hoping the police will be able to locate the person they believe is responsible. We appreciate all of your efforts to help get the word out. We’re hopeful the police will be able to locate him or that he’ll turn himself in. We need the person who did this off the streets.