14th Update

At 12:30 today, Samuel had both surgeries and was back in his room by 2:15. Everything went really well. His blood pressure was high afterwards, but that is normal. It is 7:00 pm and the blood pressure has started coming down as suspected. The last thing we are waiting on is for Samuel to start urinating again. If he doesn’t go soon, then they will give him extra fluids to stimulate this response. He has been retaining some excess fluids over the last few days.

Samuel seems to really like the trach option better than the vent tube down his throat, because within 2 hours of coming out of surgery they were able to turn his vent settings to lower than what they were before he went. By 6:00 pm, he was doing good enough for the doctor to say we would try taking him off the vent tomorrow and see how he does. If Samuel makes it 48 hours without the vent, then there’s a great chance we won’t need it when we go home.

Samuel’s face is completely free of any tape or tubes for the first time since he was born, except the one time we did family pictures. His face will have to heal from all the tape stuck to him for seven weeks, but we are glad it is off.

We ask for the following prayers: as always, continued healing of the brain; no reflux issues; that he would breathe consistently without the vent; that he would dump the excess fluids; quick healing from the surgery with no infections and a stable body temperature.

Thank you for your last minute prayers today,
Yancy