It begins with toe wiggles,

and moves on to tongue movement, and eyelid twitches. They decided to remove the paralytic that had been keeping him still and forcing him to rest since the second surgery. They were wanting to make sure that he was going to respond and it is interesting to note that the ornery boy was not giving any attention to mommy's handholding or daddy's head rubs, but it took the nurse messing with his belly dressing and giving him a bit of moving to keep him from having any skin breakdown. You have to make him mad enough to do something. Who'd figure that?


He has also begun to initiate breaths while on the ventilator, which is another good sign. It is surprising that a little purple line on a video monitor could bring such joy to parents, and the line is getting longer which means that he is putting more effort into his own breathing.


We were waiting for some good news today to make any report, because it has been more than a little tense around here as we are still concerned about John's liver and it's blood clotting indicators as well as his blood pressures. The morning rounds with the doctors did not cheer us as John had not made any steps forward since yesterday and they were afraid that the liver and infection issues were going to overcome him. They did not want us to lose hope nor were they giving up on John but they wanted to be honest with us about their concerns. There are too many conflicting indicators that they do not truly know what is causing what and what is working and what isn't. Today has therefore been spent in reading Scripture and singing hymns to keep the mommy and daddy confident that all was in the hands of the only One who was truly in charge.


Since John has woken up just a little there have been a couple of good steps forward that we can report. They have been able to turn the dialysis up so that we are getting closer to the point where they will do more than clean the blood and begin to bring down some of the fluid that is filling the cells of his body. He has also been able to cooperate with the ventilator more and breath out the CO2 instead of fighting the ventilator and holding his breath. All of this has taken place without his blood pressure crashing or losing his oxygen level.


Mark