Thursday, May 13, 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

First and foremost we would like to express our deep gratitude to each of you for your prayers on behalf of our mom & our kids' Mama Jean. We (Greg, Karen, Kirk and Tracy) are happily staying by mom's beside, rotating shifts, so that she has family with her at all times.

Mom is an amazing woman who is exceptionally strong and brave. Although she is still quite ill, we are very encouraged by her progress. I know that many of you who know and love our mom have been fervent in your prayers and are anxious to hear updates regarding her doctor's daily reports. We do hope that this blog will serve as a central place for you to stay informed, as we confess that we have not been as faithful as we should in contacting everyone, for that we hope you will extend us your grace and understanding.

I, Tracy, arrived to take the morning shift, relieving Greg, who had the night shift. Greg reported that she had a pretty good night. There was a scare around 5:00 AM when the power in the building went out for a brief moment (a generator test according to Sara our nurse for today) causing all the machines to stop. The nurse quickly reset everything, but it did cause mom's blood pressure to spike for a short time. Currently she is resting peacefully with all her vital signs are in the normal range. She does still have pneumonia present in both her lungs.

The good news is that they have continued to lower her ventilator settings and her oxygen (PO2) levels although decreasing are staying within the normal range. Dr. Gleason the pulmonary doctor is very happy with the way things are progressing. However, she will need to be on the ventilator for at least a few more days. He has been very vague with regard to specific time lines. He could run for political office based on his talent for giving non-specific answers to very specific questions. Obviously, the longer Mom is on the ventilator, the longer her overall recovery time will be, so we are praying that her time on the ventilator will be as short as possible.

Our specific prayer requests for today -
Healing of her lungs so that she can get off the ventilator as soon as possible. There is still fluid and inflammation in both lungs.
Improvement in swelling / fluid retention in her arms and legs
Protection from any secondary infections or complications.
Protection for the rest of the family.
Also, that we would be filled with God's grace as we are interacting with the medical personnel and with each other.

For those of you medical types out there, here is her specific info:
PO2 results have been
Monday 60, at this time the doctor moved her PEEP setting from 5 to 10 and her BPI @ 20 and oxygen at 100%
Tuesday 225 - a specific answer to prayer, by the way! The doctor said he was surprised that it improved so dramatically. With this reading the doctor lowered oxygen to 55% and BPI to 18
Wednesday 91 - Doctor changed PEEP setting to 5 and BPI to 14
Thursday 85 - just got the report, so we will wait and see if they make any additional changes.