One more day

What a roller coaster of a day. We slept in, so that we could catch up on some rest. 

But by lunch time I was a puddle of tears and just kind of a mess all around. My wise husband advised we go back to the RMH and rest. We both slept for 3 hours and woke up feeling a little better. We have just spent the evening with Shepherd and as we end our day we are feeling very encouraged.

They are planning to extabate (take out the breathing tube)  any time between tomorrow and monday. Please pray for God's timing in this. It's kind of a guessing game for them because they have no way of knowing if he's really ready to breath on his own except to let him try- and possibly fail. When they extabate him, they will have pulmonary specialist (lung folks) there and while they pull out the tube, they will at the same time send  a scope down his throat to see if the vocal cord is damaged or if it's something else. 

They started feeding him very small amounts of breast milk through a tube in his nose. I mean VERY little, like 1cc an hour. It is mostly to stimulate his gut and make sure that he can very slowly handle digesting food. This is major for heart patients because of their defect. They have not had adequate blood supply to the intestines and sometimes their body doesn't handle the adjustment well. So far, he has done well with 1cc an hour, so were excited. They also upped a drug that is a diarrhetic to hopefully drain his body of all the fluid it is retaining from surgery. I am looking forward to seeing his little face without all the puffiness. And it just seems so unpleasant for him. All of his labs are showing up looking great. They also did an ultrasound today to check to make sure his diaphragm wasn't another reason for his lack of success off the ventilator. Everything looked great with his diaphragm. Another praise. And, lastly, while we were in there tonight, with his great night nurse (another praise), we noticed a lot of yellow fluid leaking out of his bandage over his incision. I was concerned it might mean infection. But when the doctors came in and listened to his chest, they were ecstatic. I guess the kind of fluid that's in his body is yellow, it's not a sign of infection, but his lungs had been sounding real crackly  and now they sounded clear as a bell. So all that junk must have been inside, and now it's outside! 

So overall, it's been an encouraging day. He's doing good. Please continue to pray about the timing of the extabation. Also, pray for us after his extabation. As we experienced yesterday, once he's off the ventilator, they try to get him off the pain meds, and this means he's very uncomfortable. It was so hard to see him in pain and not be able to help him, so please pray for our strength. Also, continue to pray for our weariness- in every way. Pray for protection against discouragement. Pray that we will hope in God and not information. That will make the roller coaster a little less wild, I believe. 

Hopefully our boys are coming up to stay the night with us at the RMH tomorrow night and we can't wait. Please continue to pray for them. They are in great hands, and we haven't worried for a second, but we really miss them. We really miss simply being a family, and we can't wait to bring Shepherd home and all be together. We are already planning on a very big family vacation. Today, my sister asked Aslan what he wanted to be when he grows up and he said "a doctor." She said "really?! what kind of doctor?" and he replied "One that helps babies." awww. That's my boy.

Thank you all so much for praying for Shepherd. We have loved hearing of people all over the world praying for him. It really blows our minds. I have no idea how these folks found us, but we were so blessed to find Shepherd story on this website. Enjoy praying!