On the Road

Just a quick update.... Betsy and I left the hospital this evening to eat dinner, run to Wal-Mart and let the nurses do shift change, so we're on our way back to the hospital now. Ned's progress is still remarkable today, one day post surgery. The doctors and nurses in the PICU are still fighting over who gets to be with him everyday, and they are actually calling him the PICU mascot. They took out his chest tube (to empty the chest cavity of any fluids, air, etc.) this afternoon, and the surgical team actually wanted to start feeding him through the stomach tube today, but the PICU doctors said they wanted to wait until tomorrow. They are still working on weining him off the vent, and getting his blood pressures down (rather than up) as his heart is now able to pump blood to his body a lot more freely (not having to fight the coarc). His color is so much better right now as well.

I just keep thinking about how before surgery, the surgeon was going over what was going to be done, and all the rishs involved, from cardiac arrest on the OR table, to his lungs collapsing, to permanent paralysis of his lower body, etc. Betsy and I finally just told him that we have dwelled on statistics and risk numbers for so long (CHOP giving him 30% survival rates after birth, 80% chances of going on ECMO heart/lung bypass machine, etc.), that we really didn't need to hear about the risks anymore, that we had put Ned in God's hands a long time ago, and we were trusting Him through this. The surgeon actually seem relieved that we said this, as I think it was hard for him to put a percentage on the risks in the first place. As we have stated before, the surgeon is still checking in today and still as excited as he was yesterday about the outcome of the surgery. It is just so evident by looking at Ned and even at all the monitors and medications (which are a good bit fewer) that God definately had his mighty hand in that OR and in that hospital.

We'll post again later tonight or tomorrow, but for now I just want to thank you all for your prayers on our behalf. Betsy wrote earlier about how she woke up praying on Tuesday night, and just could not put together a cohesive sentence at the time, and that she prayed for God to wake people up to pray on our behalf. It is SO AMAZING how so many people have emailed us to tell us that actually did wake up to pray during that night. We have heard so many people telling us that they prayed, anywhere from midnight to 4:30am. I want to thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart for your thoughts and prayers during all this.

Well, Betsy is telling me to stop typing so we can head back over to UNCH. I'm sure she'll continue with an update later.

Love you all.

In Christ,

Travis, Betsy, Jack & Ned