Saturday Afternoon Update

He is doing pretty good overall today. They are doing several breathing test and exercises with him today. He is doing really well on all except for the one that he takes a deep breath and holds it. They want him at a -20 and he is at -11. The white blood cell count is up to 17 today. The surgeon ordered another cat scan of the abdominal area tomorrow morning. The main thing they will look at is the colon. The radiologist may have to put in a new drain. The nurse for today is wanting to get the dialysis port out. He has not needed dialysis for a week now (praise God). That is a potential breeding ground for infection. The nurse was also concerned that he did not seem to want to talk much. We tried to explain to her that he does not say much unless he has something to say. I guess after spending time with the rest of the family she thought he would have a big mouth too!

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Friday Evening Post

The first day on the trach went well. He was very alert during the last two visits. My mom said that he was moving his lips some and he even smiled a little. We had not seen a smile in a while. He has a tube in his nose to his stomach to pull out any of the sludge in there. He had two breathing test today. They improved dramatically from what they were like before the trach. This is what the doctors told us to expect. We are very encouraged and feel we are on the right path. Hopefully we will continue to give you good news.

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Friday Morning Update

He had a pretty good night. They moved him to what they call an ICU suite. The nurses thought that would give the doctor more room this morning for the trach procedure. It will also allow him more room to get up and moving. This will hopefully start soon. The trach procedure went well. We are praying that this is the bridge he needs to get his lungs back up. The white blood cell count dropped slightly. It is still considered high, but is lower then yesterday.

I will post this evening how the first day on the trach went.

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Christmas Day Update

Merry Christmas!

I don't have much of an update today. Things are slow at the hospital. He had a good night. He was up in the recliner this morning doing a practice breathing test. The nurse said that he had been on it for an hour and was doing good. I am not sure if they would consider taking the ventilator out without putting in the temporary trach at this point. It was nice to see he was improving though. The white blood cell count went up very slightly today. Not a massive increase which is good. The kidney numbers came down just a little. Last evening he was trying to cough up some of the stuff in his lungs. They said that was a good sign. The lung x-ray looked better today as well. Overall we are making progress! It is just going to be slow from here on out.

One thing that was encouraging today was that he wanted to read the Christmas story first thing. That has always been a tradition in our family. The nurses went and found a Bible for him. David read it. It is such a wonderful story for all of us to remind us that God has a plan. I am sure that this was not the plan that Mary had for her life. But her willingness to follow the will of God gave all of us the opportunity to be called a child of God and have the hope of an eternal life with Him. God has been so good to us and we know that His plan is the best.

We hope that you have a wonderful Christmas.

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Comments

Several have asked me how to post. I thought I would add instructions on here for everyone. Under each enter you will find a line that says posted by the Atkinson at whatever time and then a number and the word comments. Click on the word comments. You will see a screen that has a box on the left that has all the comments that have been posted. On the right you will enter your comment in the box at the top. Then you will type the word that appears in the box below it. You will then need to choose one of the options as to how to appear. If you choose anonymous then please make sure you have your name in the comment. Then click publish comment.

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Wed. Night Update

Hello!

Sorry I didn't post this morning. I have been trying to get ready for our scaled back Christmas.

Overall we have had a good day. He is very tired and has slept most of the day. The white blood cell count is up just a little bit today. They are talking about doing another cat scan over the weekend. We have also been discussing what to do about the ventilator. He does not seem to be able to get off of it as fast as the doctors would like. They typically want people on the ventilator about 14 days unless it is a permanentt thing. Thankfully we are not looking at a permanent ventilator. The option they have presented to us is to do a temporary trach. This would allow the time needed for his muscles to build back up for breathing on his own. The surgeon explained to us that there is a lot of dead space that takes about 40% of the air your take in. This is the space from your mouth or nose to your lungs. The trach would block allow the air to be pulled in after the majority of the dead space. I want to stress that this is a temporary solution that will allow him to build the muscle again. The doctor that would do the surgery did a consult today and will potentially do the surgery on Friday. David explained what was happening to my dad. We are pretty sure he understands. He knows that we do research and ask lots of questions before we agree to anything. He knows that we will only do what is best for him. Our pray is that this procedure goes well and solves the problem it is suppose to. Our other pray is for his over all spirit. Please pray that he is able to be encouraged. Please remember my mother too. She is resting and eating. This is just been very hard for her too.

Here is a link to help you understand more about the trach

http://surgeryinfo.org/tracheostomy.html

We hope that you have a wonderful Christmas. I should be able to post something in the morning.

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Tuesday Evening Post

I am going to try to do the review of the day the best I can. We got a good bit of information and I hope that I get it all across without confusing anyone. The pulmonary doctor thought the lung x-ray looked good today. They are seeing small bits of fluid at the bottom of his lungs. This may be part of the problem with him not taking deep breaths. Hopefully we will find out more on that tomorrow. The kidney numbers were slightly elevated today. He is putting out a good bit of fluid. The doctor is now concerned that he is dehydrated. They are going to start giving him a little more fluid in his IV to help with that problem. We are thinking that we will not be doing dialysis much more. It sounds like we have the green light from the kidney doctor to do the gallbladder surgery. We spoke to the heart doctor today. He was very encouraging to us. He feels the valve problem is something that will need to be fixed but is not the pressing issue right now. He has taken him off all heart related medicines. He is pretty sure that my dad will be out of the hospital and back to work before he has the heart surgery. We were very encouraged by that. We are all ready to get back to normal life. The heart doctor has said that he is fine with going ahead with the gallbladder surgery. Now we come to our main discussion of the day with the surgeon. First off, let me say that God has blessed us with a great team of doctors. They are always willing to sit and talk to us. All have been very honest and answered any and all questions we have had. We have also had wonderful nurses taking care of my dad. We defiantly know that God's hand is in this. All that to say we have hit a wall of frustration. We realize that we are in a waiting game but anyone that knows anything about our family extended or immediate knows we need a plan and we need to know what to expect next. Someone mentioned to my mom last night that they did not understand why the surgeon would not do surgery right now. We all went to bed last night knowing the one person we were looking for today was the surgeon. He should up right at 4 and set with us until 4:45. He quickly picked up on our frustration and let us know that he was getting it from the nurses too. He told us that cat scan looked like they wanted it to. The abase in the colon had shrunk to 1/3 of the size it was. The pocket of fluid behind the pancreas had shown no sign of abase and had not grown any. We asked him what we were waiting for on the gallbladder surgery. He said that he need to be up walking the halls and eating food. Pretty much my dad needs to be stronger to have the surgery. He also explained to us that he thinks that everyone is of the opinion that he has dead tissue floating around inside from the infection. The surgeon assured us that if this was the case he would have to do immediate surgery. So far this is not the case and we can wait. He said that if he was to go in now there is a chance he would disturb the fluid build up because that would potentially cause an infection. Overall we have had a good day. My dad is noticing everything and responding any way he can think of.

Please pray for the lung issue. That is his greatest need right now.

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Tuesday Morning Post

He slept well last night. The nurse said that he would wake up and help her move him around and then go back to sleep. He is currently down in x-ray for his cat scan. We should (hopefully) know about that by the end of the day. The kidney numbers and white blood cell count are slightly elevated today. They have not spoken to any doctors yet so we are unsure what they are thinking. They have not done a breathing test today. Our prayer is that he passes it with flying colors. My mom said that he seemed tired today but physical therapy came in and worked with him. I will post more as I get it today.

Thanks for the great comments. Please keep sending them. We tell him all about everyone that is commenting and praying. He seems very encouraged by them.

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Monday Evening Post

We had an okay day today. The nurse made him get out of bed on his own and sit in a chair for two hours this morning. It was good for him to do it, but it made him very tired. He did it again for an hour this evening. We had good visits today even though he was very tired. All of his stats looked and they say that the lung x-ray looked better today. I have not heard for sure if they were able to do the cat scan today. They will do it tomorrow. They did not do dialysis today. The numbers show that his kidney activity had returned to normal. There is one number that is slightly off. They will keep an eye on that.

Please continue to pray for peace and rest. The big prayer request and hurdle is still the breathing and getting of the ventilator.

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Monday Morning Update

He had an okay night last night. The nurse said that his white blood cell count is SLIGHTLY elevated today. I think it was up to 13. Normal is 11. He also had a slight fever. Hopefully we will get some news on that today. They are going to do a cat scan later today to make sure there are no more abases and the pocket of fluid around the pancreas is okay. We are still on the ventilator. Hopefully we will get another update from the new lung doctor today that is as good as yesterday. My mom asked that I put these two main prayer request in here. The first is for rest, peace, and patience for my dad. He is starting to show signs of discouragement. The second is for the lungs and breathing. We are hoping to get him off the ventilator soon!

Thanks for the prayers!!!

Sunday Evening Update

Good Evening!

We have had a relatively good day, but we are not off the ventilator yet. The lung doctor had good things to say today. They did the test this morning to see if he could handle the breathing on his own. He could not. They tried it while he was asleep and he did perfect. This makes us think that it is in his head. We have encouraged him all day to slow down on his breathing. The nurse just explained to me that he needs to be at about 15 breaths per minute. He is currently at 40. I have tried to tell him to take a breath and count to 4 and then take another breath. He only started breathing faster. Please pray that he has another good night and then is able to do well on his breathing test tomorrow. He is also starting to get discouraged. He has been in ICU for 2 weeks now. I can only imagine how he must feel. The nurse gave him a sheet of paper with letters set up like a keypad last night. He typed that he wants to go home. We told him that he has come so far but still has a bit more to accomplish before he can come home. He does know that Christmas is coming. He showed me last night that was only 5 days left. He is off all medicine right now. That is a huge answer to prayer. All he is getting is food through an IV, saline, and pain medicine. It is incredible the difference in the last few days. We are giving God all the glory for that. We know that without your prayers we would not be where we are today. We are so grateful for them. I believe I speak for my entire family when I say thank you for your prayers and kindness to us. We have really felt God's love through your actions.

Please pray for
1) Peace, rest and encouragement
2) He does well on the breathing test tomorrow
3) He continues to make progress


Thanks for the prayers!!!

Sunday Morning Update

We had a good night last night. He slept the ENTIRE night! He has not done that since this all started over two weeks ago. He had his best reading ever on the breathing reading and he is trying again on his c-pat (breathing mask) this morning. If he does well, he will be off the ventilator. Our prayer is that he is off the ventilator and the heart continues to pump strong.

Thanks for the prayers!!!