The Road To Recovery

Asher's body is continuing to recover at a slow pace. I would like to see him all better this very instant, but that isn't how things like this work (UNLESS GOD...). His body seems to be finding it's balance again now that his chest is closed. It took him a good day and many drugs to find a new rhythm. His blood pressure is the main concern right now. The nurses said that it isn't unusual to see hypertension in patients right after this type of heart surgery because the Aorta contains many receptors that help maintain a constant pressure and surgery to this area can throw things off a bit. They were concerned about how his blood pressure would spike really high at times though....and the doctors think he may be having mild seizures, which could also bring on blood pressure spikes. So, they have added another drug to his daily cocktail which will inhibit seizures if he is having any....or just make him tired if he isn't. The good news is that if he is experiencing mild seizures as a result of the surgery, he will most likely grow out of them by 3-6 months. I'm just going to believe that there is no seizing going on, PERIOD!

They did another ultrasound on his head today as well as an EKG to measure brain activity. They just want to be sure that everything is alright since he was on a Heart / Lung Bi-pass machine for a while. Apparently those machines can mess up a lot of little things in your body...but it's better to use one than to deal with the alternative, which in most cases would probably be death.

Today, Matt and I have been talking about returning home for a week or so, while Asher gets through this healing time where he is mostly kept sedated. We would still drive in daily to see him, pray over him and get updates/prayer targets for the blog....but we feel that Joel needs our time a bit more right now. Asher is in wonderfully capable hands (God's primarily...) but Joel has been missing us something terrible and we have been missing him even more. So, we are tentatively looking to move back to our house on Monday and then return to the Ronald McDonald House once Asher is off the ventilator and eating and when we can hold him and be of some use here.

Prayer Targets:

Pray that Asher's blood pressure stays stable.

Pray that the Edema/Swelling would go down.

Pray that they would be able to take out his breathing tube an get him off the ventilator.

Pray that he would be strong and be able to breathe on his own shortly after taking him off the ventilator

Pray that there would be no seizures

Pray that he mobilizes the fluid outside his tissue to back into hi circulatory system and then pees it out.


Blessings

The Bonds