Man has it ever been a roller coaster the past week. Brandon is still with us and fighting like a tiger. Please keep continuing to pray for him and his family. Here are some recent updates from Regina.
January 5 -
Got word that we have a liver. OR time scheduled for 9:30. They could still reject the liver if they physically see something they don't like about it, but so far it seems to be a match. Pray diligently today that this transplant is a success. Thank you all so much.
January 5 -
Heard more from the transplant team and they say everything went very, very well. There were no problems at all and they only had to use 4 units of blood. That is amazing, too. Please continue to pray that he has just as easy of a recovery and there is no problem with rejection. Also, in all of this, please remember the family who lost their loved one. I've been so focused on Brandon, I forgot about what happened to another family while thinking about my son.
January 6 -
Brandon had a very bad night. His heart rate got very high and he went into A-fib again. They had to shock his heart 4 times. Finally around 4:30 or 5:00 this morning, his heart rate came down. They had to put him back on dialysis. Right now, his vitals are stable. He is still very sick with all the problems the old liver caused, 3 major surgeries, and not waking up for more than a week now. Hopefully, today goes better and he makes some strides towards being weaned off life support and waking up.
January 7 -
Brandon had a good night. He may, however, have pneumonia. They cleaned a bunch of stuff out of his left lung yesterday, but this morning the bronch test was clear. His numbers are pretty stable. His eyes look better. Best of all - he was awake this morning and hot happy. He was not happy with all the stuff down his throat. So that's a good and understandable thing to not be happy about. I... feel better because he could respond accordingly to questions and he could follow my voice from side to side of the bed and he could follow me with his eyes. We have a long way to go, but this is encouraging and something that we needed to see from him. They will have to gradually wean him from the vent.
January 9 -
Brandon had another good night. He is totally awake and not happy at all with the vent. It's so hard to communicate with him since he can't make any sounds at all. It took me a good half hour yesterday to figure out what he was trying to ask about. Finally figured out that he wanted to know where his cell phone was. Apparently, he wanted to text some of you! They have reduced the vent down by ...half of what it was. I so hope and pray that tomorrow is the day he gets that out. When he can finally talk, however, somebody's going to get an earful. The ICU docs are calling Brandon a Rockstar because of his marked improvement. They are very pleased with his progression. I'm a little worried about a couple of things, one of which is the billirubin number is still pretty high and the other is a JP drain that has started putting out more today. They are doing a Hyde-A-Scan right now, which is a liver scan. They are talking about taking him off the continuous dialysis today as well.
Because of all the efforts in Springfield and around the state for blood donations in Brandon's name, the Red Cross is featuring Brandon in a media release that should go out the next few days. Thank you all who donated. You've done a great thing. Once again, thank you for all your prayers, too. Those prayers are certainly being answered.
January 10-
Brandon has taken a turn for he worse. He hasn't slept at all, he has a high fever, an area of air inside, a pool of fluid under his liver, and is infected. They are putting in new peripheral lines and a new central line, taking out the old ones, and then taking him back to the OR for an exploratory surgery to see what might be going on. This is the setback that I so hoped wouldn't happen. Thi...s is major and very, very serious. It also takes away all hopes of getting the vent out anytime soon. He hates the vent and can't communicate with it in. Pray Brandon doesn't give up. He is so weak and so uncomfortable and so many horrible things are being done to him. He is tough and handles everything so well, so I pray he doesn't reach that point where it just becomes too much. Four surgeries of this magnitude is a lot to handle in a few weeks.
January 11-
Quick update. Brandon's surgery was good but confusing. They didn't find anything wrong - - - awesome. They said that the air pocket seemed to be at the JP site and is probably still just from the transplant. They washed the pooled fluid out of his abdomen. All that is good. The confusing part is that they didn't find anything to fix. So, what they plan to do now is treat for infection, possible rejection, and watch and wait.
There it is, keep praying for this family. The ups and downs are hard to handle. Stay strong, buddy, you'll get through this.
On a brighter note: Praise Jesus for the second liver and for all the donors who gave blood in Brandon's name.
No comments:
Post a Comment