One amazing boy

Another scar, another day

Luke is doing well and sleeping soundly after his diaphragm surgery last night. It amazes me what this kid has to battle through and he does it with a smile on his face. Yesterday, he had to stop eating around noon and he wasn't taken back to surgery until 8:30 p.m. I am truly not exaggerating when I say he was giving us big smiles even up to the point we had to hand him over to the anesthesiologists.

Grandma Janis helping us move
our wagon of stuff from our room
on the Giraffe Floor out to our R.V.
while Luke recovers in the I.C.U.

It was a late night as we didn't get to see him again until 10:30 p.m. But he looked great and the surgery went without a hitch. He came out of the O.R. and stayed the night in ICU, but the plan is to move him back to the floor later today. He is currently on morphine, but they are switching him to a little bit less strong pain medication called Toradol. He is going to be pretty sore for a few days since the incision in his side is through layers of muscle. Poor guy, he was well on his way to healing from his chest incision! He also has a new chest tube in for any drainage, but not much has been draining, which is good. He has had a few small bottles overnight, so overall really good news. He is also on no oxygen this morning and his sat's are in the low 80's. That's already higher than we've seen since surgery.

Prayer requests would be for minimal discomfort for Luke over the next few days, also that he would continue to eat and that there would be no secondary complications from this surgery.

Our journey at Children's continues

So we are still at Children's ... and possibly heading into another surgery tomorrow afternoon.

Thankfully, Luke's heart is doing great, but they have discovered that his left diaphragm is paradoxical. What that means is that it is working in the opposite direction it's supposed to. When it's supposed to be expanding and opening, it's contracting and vice versa. In a baby, and especially a baby who just had the Glenn operation, this can interfere with his lung capacity. That is why they are thinking his saturation levels haven't come up to where they'd like them to be. Over the weekend, they were thinking it was the fluid perfusion in his lung, but are now leaning towards this diaphragm abnormality to be the cause of his lower sat's.

So, what does this mean? There is a procedure they can do called a diaphragm plication, where they surgically go through Luke's side and put a series of stitches into Luke's diaphragm to cause it to lay flat and not work against his left lung. They are going to do one more study this afternoon to get an even better look at the way Luke's diaphragm is working and from there make the decision to operate or not. If they decide to, it would be tomorrow around 5 p.m. It's a fairly quick procedure, but one where Luke would have to go under anesthesia again, and probably stay one night in the ICU to be monitored. It would probably keep us here an extra four or five days for recovery.

Rog and I are kind of numb to the idea of another surgery, which is probably a blessing from God. We trust the doctors here implicitly and they have been conferring with our cardiologist in Tacoma as well. I know they will only do this surgery if they truly believe it will help Luke in the long run. It definitely feels like a huge step backwards, but again are finding thankfulness in that they can diagnose and fix issues like this.

I will let you know what they find out in the test this afternoon. Please pray that Luke's diaphragm would actually be working correctly and the God would give the doctors perfect wisdom in their decision-making.

Storms in the Desert - a Devotional

This devotional was sent to me by my dear friend Erica today and brought much-needed encouragement. I wanted to share it with you.

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I once visited the testing room of a large steel mill. I was surrounded by instruments and equipment that tested pieces of steel to their limits and measured their breaking point. Some pieces had been twisted until they broke, and then were labeled with the level of pressure they could withstand. Some had been stretched to their breaking point, with their level of strength also noted. Others had been compressed to their crushing point and measured. Because of the testing, the manager of the mill knew exactly how much stress and strain each piece of steel could endure if it was used to build a ship, building, or bridge.

It is often much the same with God’s children, He does not want us to be like fragile vases of glass or porcelain. He wants us to be like these toughened pieces of steel, able to endure twisting and crushing pressure to the utmost without collapse.

God does not want us to be like greenhouse plants, which are sheltered from rough weather, but like storm-beaten oaks; of wind but like granite mountains that withstand the fiercest storms. Yet to accomplish this, He must take us into His testing room of suffering. And many of us need no other argument than our own experiences to prove that suffering is indeed God’s testing room of faith.

It is quite easy for us to talk and to theorize about faith, but God often puts us into His crucible of affliction to test the purity of our gold and to separate the dross from the metal. How happy we are if the hurricanes that blow across life’s raging sea have the effect of making Jesus more precious to us! It is better to weather the storm with Christ than to sail smooth waters without Him.

What if God could not manage to mature your life without suffering?

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Luke enjoying his time at Children's too much

Luke has decided he's not quite ready to go home yet, much to his parents' disappointment! Yesterday, Luke's chest x-ray showed a little fluid pocket in the left lung and his saturation levels would dip below comfort level, so they ordered another x-ray this morning. Thankfully, it looks a little better than yesterday, so they are just giving him a couple of doses of Lasix through an IV (which is more effective than an oral dose) instead of having to insert a new drainage tube (which they were going to do if his x-ray didn't improve from yesterday).

It's been a bit of a tough morning since he's had to have an IV put back in and his oxygen is back on, but we are praising the Lord that the fluid is less than yesterday. We are praying that the Lasix does the trick and that we will be back on track to get home this week. They were confident we'd be home tomorrow, so we're definitely feeling some disappointment this morning. It's also hard to see things going back ON Luke at this point, since he was pretty much free from all his wires for a couple days.

The other thing we're thankful for is that they caught this before we got home. It would have been much tougher to have to come back to the hospital rather than extend our stay a couple days. Please pray that Luke's lungs clear up quickly and that we would be on our way home!

Luke continues to have a joyful spirit through all this, and is making friends all over the floor =)

Luke update - doing great!

A big step ... Luke's oxygen was turned off as of last night and he did really well keeping his sats up through the night. We are excited to have one more thing removed! Also they're going to take out his pacemaker wires this morning, so he will be totally free except for a couple monitors! They are going to also take out his chest tube sutures and give him a bath ... he needs it!

They are hopeful to get us home this weekend, which would be amazing!

He has been so happy, and has loved his walks through the hospital Rog and I take him on. He is back to his old self, smiling and flirting at everyone passing by!

The more we're here at Children's the more we give thanks for this place. It truly is an amazing hospital, not just the cardiothoracic staff (which we're finding out is world-renowned) but the family-friendly environment.

Thank you for your continued prayers for healing for Luke, they are the biggest gifts you could give our family.