Starting to wake up!!!

Yes. That is right. Dad is starting to wake up now. They are slowly decreasing his sedation. He is moving around and lifting his arms and legs. He responds to voice and when asked to open his eyes, he raises his eyebrows. They are now trying to wean him off of the ventilator. He was getting 10 respirations a minute from the machine and then they decreased it to 8 and now 6. His FiO2 is still at 45% and he continues to tolerate it well. Continue to pray that his lungs would be strong and pray against infection. As they wean him off and if he tolerates it OK, they will take the tube out of his throat.

Yea!! He has now been off all of his blood pressure medicines since noon and he is maintaining his blood pressure on his own.

It is a balancing act with his kidneys. They are trying not to dry Dad out now. They have slowed the rate of the dialysis. His creatinine is 2.8 which is high. Normal is less than 1.2. It is going down slowly each day though.

Regarding his liver, his INR is still at 1.8. They are going to hold off on giving him plasma to see what it does on its own. Continue to pray that this clotting part of the liver would kick in.

His platelets are low today at 19,000 so they gave him a transfusion. They said the dialysis machine chews up your platelets.

Dr. Levy said our two big goals are to get off the ventilator and dialysis. They have decided to keep Dad on hold on the status one list for now. Yea!!! He can stay on this list for one week and then if they need to they can put him back on the regular list but his score would be high enough he could get one fast. Dr. Levy is still so skeptical but Dr. Ruiz at least acknowledges the improvement. He said his liver could keep getting better or if it keeps teetering we can put him back on the regular list again. Dr. Ruiz is so great to talk with because he is not so negative. Dr. Levy is so interesting because he just keeps staring at Beth wanting some big reaction out of her and we are just like OK we are fine with everything and we will continue to take one day at a time.

I just want to stop and praise God for all He has done this week. It is hard to believe it has been 5 days already. God is indeed healing Dad's liver!! Dr. Ruiz mentioned today that the status one list is for people who have acute liver failure and imminent death. That is where we were on Tuesday but Praise God. Look what He has done. He turned things around!!! He has heard the cries of His people all over the world to heal Dad's liver and He is doing that. People gathered all over Tuesday night and Wednesday night and continue to do so and He is healing the liver that was failing. That is why he is on hold on the list right now.

Praise God for His sovereignty of allowing these surgeons to leave a sponge in Dad, something they never do. This was in God's plan because this allowed the surgeons to see first hand that part of the liver was dying. It also allowed them the opportunity to put Dad on the status-one list because you are required to do so 24 hours after surgery which he qualified for since he had the second surgery.

We can't thank everyone enough for the continued prayers, support, and encouragement from all over. It means so much to our family and we thank you for loving on us during this time.