Tomorrow

Psalm 89:1 "I will sing of the LORD's great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations"

How gracious our God had been!

Ever since July when James was diagnosed and we were made aware of the risks of doing a WLL on an adult, and the greater risk of doing it on such a small child we have dreaded the day we would hear that James needed a WLL. As time went on and we realized that we had no other choice we began to accept this as we could not bear to see him slowly suffering more and more. I cannot even begin to express what a sense of relief it was yesterday for everything to go well. Not just well, but SO well. We of course don't know all that has gone on behind the scenes or what they are not telling us, but the doctors almost make it sound like it was all a breeze. We know it wasn't, for we also know that they had to work hard to get a Team together who was willing to attempt the procedure.

James is doing wonderful. We cannot get over how he woke up from the procedure, it was just like he took a little nap. I am used to a screaming, upset, cranky, irritable child after anesthetic so this was totally unexpected but very welcomed. James spent the night in the observation room and did wonderful. He slept well with no deSATs. This morning he was moved back to his room again. He is currently running on about 0.5L of oxygen and SATing around 96% on that ... a definite improvement. They were extremely happy with how his x-ray looked this morning. We have held off on doing James' GM-CSF treatment until he is feeling better, he has a really sore throat now from the tubes being put down it. They expect to get some result back today on fluids that were taken out of his lungs to be tested for infection. It will probably be next week before we get results on the surfactant that was sent to the scientist to evaluate how it reacts to the treatment he is currently on.

So what does the title mean. No, it does not mean we're going home tomorrow. Tomorrow we will head back down to the O.R. to clean out his right lung. Our doctor put in a requisition for O.R. time and was told there is a cancellation tomorrow morning and it's ours if we want it. They feel he is doing well enough to go, clinically he is doing better then when he went down yesterday. The only thing I was concered about was his throat. It sounds awful and he has an extremely hoarse cough, I was concerned the swelling would make it difficult for them to put the tubes back down. They advised that they can give him a medication to reduce the inflammation and if they really felt it was too bad to proceed they would stop. Getting O.R. so quickly is amazing and having the entire special team available again tomorrow is even more amazing so there doesn't seem to be any reason to hold us back.

I pray that they, as well as us, are not getting overconfident. They have decided not to book ICU this time, so we won't have to worry about a cancellation due to that. I keep reminding myself that just because yesterday went so well doesn't mean tomorrow will be the same. They have advised us tomorrow should be better and easier then yesterday. For one, he is that much healthier. His left lung will have to do the work and it's in much better shape. It is also easier to put the tube into the right lung to clean it, so the procedure itself should be easier as well. We pray that our Heavenly Father will once again guide the work they are doing and that we do not become confident in the hands of man but remember who is in control. We know that we will be more relaxed and less anxious tomorrow then yesterday, but we continue to remind ourselves that things can still go wrong, just like they could have last time. But oh, how nice it will be to have it all done.

If things go as well tomorrow as they did yesterday then they hope to discharge us on Monday. Yah!! I am thankful for this going so quickly as I was dreading having to hang around here until next week, or being discharged and having to come back ... that would have been worse. At least we are settle here now, back and forth is harder on the family and on James. There are great advantages to having this done as inpatient also. If he had to come back as an outpatient who was later admitted we would not have a room here anymore. That would mean hanging out in the O.R. waiting room before hand (you have to be there two hours before your procedure and who knows how much it will be delayed). It would mean repacking and having to drag everything in again. It would mean that I would not have a room to sleep in if he is in Observation. Last night I had my own private room since they left it for James to come back to today. The C.Diff has been handy also (if you want to look at it that way). Because James has C.Diff he goes into isolations rooms before going to OR and after in the recovery room. Normally only one parent goes into the recovery room but since we have our own private room both Rob and I were able to go yesterday. Not that it really matter as he was so calm and collected anyways.

So, that's my story for today. More again tomorrow!! :) We continue to covet your prayers.

Galatian 6:2 "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."