9th Update

Samuel has had some ups and downs since my last update. Today he is doing well in all areas, except still no gag reflex. In my last update I spoke about trying to remove the ventilator and see how he tolerates it and replace if needed. They were slowly weaning his breathing and had lowered it to a rate of 14 breaths per minute. Samuel decided he was really comfortable with that rate, got lazy and decided he was just going to let the vent breathe for him. The last few days he has been very inconsistent with his breathing. They did another EEG to see if Samuel was getting into a sleep cycle which caused him not to breathe over the vent. The results didn’t show definite sleep cycles, so we again started the discussions with the doctor about the tracheotomy and G-tube surgery. Last night he decided he didn’t like those discussions, so he did well breathing thru the night. This morning he was still doing well, so the doctor decided to lower the support rate to 10 breathes per min and he is doing well with it. We are back to talking about removing the vent in the next couple of days…

Main prayer requests: Gag reflex and swallowing, consistent breathing – especially when we remove the vent, and healing of the brain areas.

Today we spoke with an organization called Footprints. One of their many services includes professional photos of the baby and family. We are going to try to coordinate these photos at the same time we remove the vent and if Samuel decides to cooperate with our plans, I will have Anita post them on the blog.

As always I thank you for your prayers and support. If anyone on this list is in need of our prayers, we will gladly lift them up with ours.

Yancy