Dear friends and family. Thank you for your containing support and your invaluable prayers.
Michael remains heavily sedated and is still depending on a ventilator. Our days are a balancing act between treatments, drugs, and medical conditions. There are several positive signs, as well as continuing challenges.
Dialysis has begun. They took off 5 liters of excess fluid yesterday and 2.5 liters today. It seems to have improved his creatinine levels as well. The doctors assessed that they removed all necessary fluid today. They will reassess tomorrow to determine if there is any addition fluid that may redistribute and need to be removed. Michael looks much more like himself now that we have removed so much of the water he has been retaining.
We are happy to share that Michael is getting nutrition through a feeding tube, and has reached the optimal rate of 65 mL per hour of Peptamen AF. Although the feeding is going well, it is also accompanied with diarrhea. We have started cultures to determine if this is caused by a drug interaction, C-Diff, or graft v. host. We are praying this not a symptom of graft v. host, as intestinal graft v. host can be particularly difficult to treat.
Even with the disruptions from the dialysis process, his oxygenation is improving. When he came into the ICU he was getting between 95%-100% oxygen through the ventilator; now he is getting 45%. We are anxious to get Michael off the ventilator, but are waiting for further stabilization.
His blood sugar level is slowly stabilizing (currently at 136), and we hope that his new nutrition source will allow us to achieve greater control of his bood sugar level.
His daily chest x-rays have not improved, still showing areas of inflamation and fluid in the lungs. This may not be an insurmountable problem, but we won't fully know the state of his lungs until he is taken off sedation.
The doctors have started evaluating Michael's response to reduced sedation. Every day they reduce the sedation rates and observe several indicators: how does he oxygenate, can he follow commands, and how do the lungs react. So far, when Mike's sedation is reduced, he becomes very agitated. Being intubated is very uncomfortable and the heavy sedation and restraints can cause confusion and panic, so his agitation is normal, but it does cause an increased load on the lungs and also seems to distract his lungs from working efficiently. Until he can maintain his lung efficiency without sedation, he cannot be taken off the ventilator; so we ask your prayers for Michael to overcome the discomfort and confusion of his sedation dreams so that he can wake.
Getting off the ventilator is a critical step that will allow Michael to begin to heal. Thank you for your prayers for Michael. We pray that he is defended from the myriad of viruses and infections present in hospitals, that his medicines can be effective without undue side effects or reactions, and for the wisdom our our medical staff. Thank you to everyone; we are so grateful for you.
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