"A pretty Good Day"

This was the quote by the nurse who came on duty tonight after looking at Gary's charts.  Sometimes as we go through the day we feel discouraged when we do not see big improvements or changes.  But I am constantly reminded that the Lord is directing this and it is not in my time.

Gary has had dialysis for much of the day which is both good and bad.  Good because the end goal is to make sure that Gary is in the negatives which means that more fluid is coming out rather then going in.  This would be the first day that this has happened in a long while.  This dialysis is not helpful though because it lowers his blood pressure which makes the need for the blood pressure meds he is taking to go up.

The white cell count for Gary has gone down slightly today which is great news.  Hopefully this means that his blood infection is starting to respond to the antibiotics that he is on.

Gary's blood sugar was also down today but that should be fixed since he started on "real" food today.  He has a feeding tube now which he gets his Ensure liquid through.  They have been slowly increasing the amount that he is getting throughout the day.  When we left the hospital tonight he was up to 25mL/hour.  I often just keep repeating in my head "baby steps are good."

As for breathing, it seems that Gary is breathing a bit better again today and is taking deeper breaths on his "own".  He is still hooked up to the ventilator but he had a very steady breathing pattern for much of the afternoon/evening.

Now for the things to pray about.  The transplant team needs Gary to fight the infection down to a reasonable level and for him to wake up a bit.  He has been off pain meds since Sunday morning but he has not been able to work through the fog in his mind to open his eyes yet.  Mom Drost, Matt and I were talking to him and reading the Bible to try to help him gain some clarity from familiar voices but we have not had any success yet.  Tuesday brings a lot of visitors from family and friends again so we hope that all the familiar voices will help!

Once the team deems that Gary is fit for surgery he will be activated on the list and the hope is that a liver will come available soon.  The doctor who talked to me this afternoon stressed to me again though that Gary is a very sick man and that we will only have a small window of opportunity to work with when he gets activated.

There is another family that we have talked too often in the waiting room who has been on a similar journey with a 22 year old boy.  He needs a heart transplant badly and has been activated on Sunday night.  As I type this, the team is flying to Ottawa to see if a heart that has come up on the list is indeed a perfect fit for him.  Please also include Cory in your prayers.  This also gives hope to me that things can progress quite quickly once Gary gets activated!