Praise God for answering the cries of His people!!

Beth and I just went back and saw Phil and his FiO2 is now down to 40!!!! He continues to breath 16-20 breaths/minute and looks comfortable. He rested last night.

The transplant team was rounding and we spoke with them. They were very encouraged at how his lungs were doing today. They said that there was signs that he may have an underlying pneumonia on his chest x-ray and his blood cultures grew a little bacteria (Klebsiella) and yeast. However, they had already changed his medications a couple days ago and said that he is not showing any signs of infection clinically- no fever or elevated white blood cell count. Praise God for turning around this situation with his lungs. They are consulting an Infectious Disease doctor just to be on board and make sure they aren't missing anything else. Their goal is once again to try to get him off of the ventilator. They want to try and wake him up again this afternoon. Continue to pray for Phil during this time as they are going to wake up him and he is going to have to deal with having to go back again for surgery. Continue to pray against infection. The nurse just came out and said that the lung doctor wants to do a bronchoscopy which is a fancy word for putting a camera down the trachea and taking a look at the lungs. We are waiting because we have to see the doctor and sign the consent.

As far as the liver goes, it is functioning about the same. His bilirubin is the same today at 4.6. His INR went down a little to 2.0. They said that we are now waiting on the perfect liver. Thankfully, his liver is not acutely going bad so we are able to wait several days maybe even a week. Continue to pray that God would heal this liver if it is His will or that he would provide the perfect liver in His perfect timing. Continue to pray for discernment and wisdom for Dr. Levy. Pray that God would decide for him. God is definitely answering your prayers about Dr. Levy. He was actually able to look at the good things today. Beth and I looked at each other and did a double take when he was talking because he is usually so pessimistic. God's timing has been so perfect this far and we continue for his timing in all of this. Continue to pray for the donor and their family during this time- for their salvation and God's peace that passes all understanding.

His kidneys are still just hanging. His Creatinine actually bumped to 3.9 this morning only up from 3.8. Dr. Levy said he likes that Phil is urinating a lot. This is the first function of the kidneys to return after they are damaged. His BUN is elevated at 110 today which is another marker of the kidneys. They are going to talk with the kidney doctors about whether or not to do some dialysis to get that down. Sometimes elevated BUN can make you a little groggy when you wake up.

Dr. Levy is also encouraged by Phil's blood pressure and that he is not requiring any medication to keep it where it is. Dr. Levy said that surgeons are simple and they like to look at the number of machines in a room to tell them how things are going. He is encouraged that the number in Phil's room are decreasing.

We praise God for some more baby steps back in the right direction. Pray that God's name would continue to be made great through this.

Some of you have asked how we ended up at Baylor in Ft. Worth so I thought I would explain. All of Phil's liver transplant work-up was done by Dr. Davis, his hepatologist (liver doctor), at Baylor Dallas. One of the benefits of going to Baylor is that you are able to be listed on both the Baylor Ft. Worth list and Baylor Dallas list. Fort Worth and Houston are part of the same organ bank and Dallas and Amarillo/West Texas are in their own network. Since this liver was from Houston, Phil had to come to Ft. Worth. The transplant surgeons are the same at both hospitals. They rotate at both of them. We asked if Phil could be put back on both lists so that potentially they could transfer him to Dallas. They said that with his lungs right now, they don't want to transfer him. Now he is only on the Ft. Worth/Houston list. We asked why they couldn't just bring an organ over here from Dallas and Dr. Levy said he would be put in transplant jail if he did that.

One of our friends sent us this and I wanted to share it with everyone, it made us smile.
2 Samuel 22:2, David sings- "The LORD is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer," so just remember- you can't spell Deliverer without 'liver'!