Month: September 2009

His oxygen is down to 40% today. woo hoo!!!! Don’t know about the Peep and have not heard anything about removing the tube today. But we will be heading over there soon and we will see. I’m just happy he is progressing!!! Praise God! – Naomi

Here are the President’s prepared remarks for the nation’s students tomorrow.

Here’s a good meditation on Mystery from Fr. Richard Rohr that I receive daily. Very good!

MYSTERY

Our faith is not in words. Our faith is in a person and a real relationship. Our faith is in God, who is revealing the divine self to us in everything that happens to us. As Paula D’Arcy says, “God comes to us disguised as our life.” Mature faith calls us into a personal dialogue with Life as it is, not a slavish attachment to ideas or words. Words are not reality itself. Mere attachment to words leads to fundamentalist religion, which is invariably exclusionary and elitist, and lacking in real experience.

The Scriptures call us into a personal struggle with the angels of Yahweh, like Jacob who “struggled with God and won” (Genesis 32:24-31). In our necessary wrestling match with God, we come to an open and free space called faith. Faith is not just another competing ideology with other world views or religions. It is more a process than a conclusion, more a way of relating than a way of explaining, more a wrestling match than a classroom lesson. More love and acceptance of mystery than a demand for answers.

His oxygen is back down to 50% today but his Peep is still at 10. The nurse said that once his O2 goes down to at least 40 they will start weaning his peep down. So stil may be a couple of days until they can try again the take out the tube. The nurse said today is a good day though. He has been sustaining his O2 when they move him and put him on a new sedation-Propothol which he is alot calmer on and is helping him all around. We believe that God is meeting with him during this time and sharing His heart with Him. We are praying that this is just God’s will for him to heal while asleep and once he wakes up it will be a quick recovery and not longer because of the longer time on the respirator. It’s hard though because his family will be leaving this Wednesday. We thought he would’ve been awake and off the tube for almost a week before they left and they would’ve been able to spend time together. But that is not the way God is orchestrating it.
We were so blessed this morning visiting a church out here that Pastor Todd hooked us up with. We are on their prayer list and the music and main pastor have visited and prayed with us and him a couple of times as well as some of the elders too. We loved the church! They have such a sweet spirit about them and we were very ministered to this morning and feel refreshed in the Lord! Praise God for the family of Christ! I also have a friends family that me and Tommy stayed with before the surgery. I will stay with them still. They have become like family to me so even after his family leaves I will not be alone out here while he’s in the hospital. And ultimately God is with us and I love Him more than anything!! 🙂

September 6 Part 2-
Today was a great day! As I said his oxygen was down to 50% and while we were there they were able to move his Peep down to 6!!! Praise God!!!!!!!!!!!!! He has been sustaining his oxygen too while they move him and things like that. He was a lot calmer today on the new sedation. It’s so funny because they have him on this one sedation called versed I think. And the nurse told me that when she saw the amount of it he was on she couldn’t believe that he still keeps waking up. She has never had a patient who woke up that much on that much versed. I think his will is so strong he just doesn’t want to fall asleep. Especially when we, as his family are there, he keeps trying to communicate with us. He has been so much more awake lately, opening his eyes at the slightest sound. He’s been able to point to a clipboard with letters on it to try to communicate. He usually just wants to have his mouth swabbed out because it’s so dry or to be moved up and down. But once he knows we are there he can’t just lay there he has to try and hang out with us even though we keep telling him he has to sleep. Sal was abel to tell him about Yankee updates and he looked interested. He also smiled once or twice. A nurse that was helping out told him she liked his hair and he smiled. I told her he does it on his own. He was so cute. Also, while the music we have always playing in the background was on, it looked like he was actually tapping to the beat. He was tapping his foot and drumming with his hands. I said “I think he’s drumming to the song” It was really funny. So anyway, I was so happy and refreshed today from this morning at church and then all of the good news of the day. So I am just PRAYING that his levels stay down and do not creep back up!! The doctor came in and was so excited himself and said we could maybe try again tomorrow to take out the tube if it goes down even more, if not hopefully Tuesday. It would be wonderful if it happened tomorrow because then Heather and Sal will be able to spend time with him awake before they leave on Tuesday. So we will see! God knows! 🙂
~Naomi

Called his nurse this morning. His oxygen is back up to 80% and peep at 10. If you’ve read my past note you know they need to be at 40 and 5 to even consider trying to take out the tube. So it’s still a no go for today. 😦 Have no idea now how long this process is going to take. Guess we can only take it one day at a time.

So, not much happened today. He is still not ready for the tubes to be taken out. They didn’t even try today because his levels weren’t up to par. He needs to only be relying on 40% of oxygen or lower. And this other level called the peep level needs to be at 5. They were both there yesterday but today for some reason, his oxygen was up to 70% this morning and his peep up to 9. The doctors told us in the beginning not to be worried but his levels could just fluctuate like that without warning. Our main doctor told us that he was so mad this morning when he saw that because he really wanted to take him off of it today but is not worried. It will get there. But it is taking longer because of the injury to his lung. So you can pray that his lungs heal up and he will be able to breathe on his own soon. Unless God WANTS him to be asleep for this long so that he can heal without being awake, I don’t know. But it’s getting hard to keep going on like this.
Today he kept waking up alot. And was actually able to write to the nurses. This morning he tried to write but it only came out in a scribble but later on he was able to ask the nurse in writing “Where am I?” because they said patients of this surgery and are sedated like this get confused and forget what’s going on even 5 minutes later. He had a new nurse, Kevin, tonight and he was very nice and explained a lot to us. He said for us to talk to him, he knows we are there and can answer yes or no questions by nodding his head or shaking it no. So we did a little. We were able to find out he was comfortable but wanted to sit up and that he wanted a cold cloth on his forhead. The end of the night after we prayed with him, and we said goodnight he grabbed my hand and was trying to tell me something. I felt so bad because he was getting frustrated and we couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. He tried writing but couldn’t get it out. Then, (mom you’ll like this) I asked him if he remembered sign language and he shook his head yes and actually started signing letters. He only ended up spelling “lemon” which didn’t make sense and Kevin said he’s out of it and really doesn’t know what he’s trying to say. But I was still so proud of him that he could actually remember how to sign and he acknowledged that those were the letters he meant and was trying to say. That’s not as easy as just remembering how to spell things. So that made me happy at least that his brain is really functioning. I felt bad though, he seemed like he wanted to tell me he wanted something so bad but Kevin said we should just go because he needs to sleep and won’t even remeber this later on. So we left.
They will check his levels again tomorrow and it will just keep continuing like this for awhile. Once he is off the breathing tube he can wake up and start eating and talking. So i cannot wait for that!! But all in God’s timing

Hello everyone! I have to write quickly so I can get in the shower. I didn’t have time at all yesterday to write because I was so exhausted, so this is yesterdays update today. And yesterday I wrote stuff down as soon as the doctor left the room so I could remember as much as possible (thanks Robyn) So, as I said on my status update they were again unable to take out the breathing tube. They said that when they woke him up he was calm and not anxious but he was still having to work way too hard to breathe on his own and they knew he wasn’t ready. The risks of keeping the breathing tube in too long is that there’s a greater risk of getting pnemonia, but the risk of taking it out and not being able to breathe is obviously far greater. They think he’s having a hard time getting rid of it because of something called a reperfusion injury of the lung, which I think causes a leakage and that is from the clots being in for so long and the body not knowing how to pump blood without them there. But the doctor said this is something that will go away soon and not something he has to live with, which I was worried about. Even though he still can’t breathe on his own, the doctors are still so happy with his progress. All the levels are going where they want them to be and said it’s a good sign they are even trying everyday to get him off it because they wouldn’t even try if what they read was not good. So, he said to not worry if he was doing bad he would tell us but he is very happy with how he’s been doing. He told us that he was really bad after the surgery which doesn’t happen normally til the next day and he was inflammed or something inside and the nurse said she’d never seen anything that bad. But it has been coming down everyday and has been doing significantly better. The doctor said he is doing “miraculously” from where he was on Monday. So praise God for that!! He also said that during the surgery his muscle mass worked against him. Something like the muscles need oxygen and when they weren’t getting it they start releasing a poison into the blood stream. If he was just a skinny guy that wouldn’t have happened. So that was another reason he’s going slower than most. Most of the patients are either women or 70 year old men. But the fact that he is in such good shape and muscular, they say will help him now to get better.
Oh, i just wanted to clear something up. That picture of the clots is not actually “clots” it is the scar tissue that formed around the clots. The body tries to dissolve it and when it can’t it just becomes a part of the pulmonary arteries and forms scar tissue around it. So that is still the size of the clots and what was blocking his breathing. Just incase some of you are nurses or anything and are wondering how those could be clots, they are not,they are scar tissue. And i thought it was a 15 inch ruler on the bottom, but it was 15 centimeters which is 6 inches. Still big.
So yesterday was hard because at one point he woke up so much more than he ever had. He was looking at me and trying to move and swallow and looked like he was trying to say something as if he was in pain and I didn’t know what he wanted and wanted him to fall back asleep so he wouldn’t be uncomfortable and I just burst into tears. I had been there day after day holding it back and I just could not take it anymore! The nurse came in and gave him more pain killers and I told her I thought he was in pain but as she asked him questions it came out that he just had to go to the bathroom. He didn’t know he was hooked up and could just go. So, she told him he could and fixed the medication and soon he fell back asleep. She is sooo nice! I cried to her twice that day. All of the other nurses probably think I have no feelings cuz I’ve seemed okay and then I just wept to nurse Sarah. She probably thinks I’m a basket case. 🙂 but she was soooo kind and comforted me and got me tissues and kept reassuring me he wasn’t in any pain and kept asking me if I was okay. 🙂 she said she would be back today which makes me so happy when we see the same nurse taking care of him (especially if we like them) :-> So that was the toughest day so far. But as always, God is good and prepared me for the day yesterday morning with a wonderful time of worship with just me and Him. He is faithful. So, they are going to try again today. Heather and I are trying to get there around 10am when they usually try so we can be there to hear right away what their plans are. The doctor thinks it still may not be until tomorrow but they will try anyway.
I will try to write later tonight and let you know what happens today. Thanks again!! 🙂
~Naomi

I just finished reading the classic book The Pilgrim’s Progress. It was an enjoyable read and I enjoyed the book’s focus on the journey of faith that we are all on.

With school about to start, our school administrators have been in some important informational meetings with other area school administrators about the swine flu. Here are two videos that reveal the powerful advice he has been given to help prevent the spread of the swine flu. The first one is directly from the Secretary of Health & Human Services, but the second is far more enjoyable! PRACTICAL & PROFOUND! Enjoy! lol