A Whirlwind trip

HI everyone- it has been a whirlwind the last few days. Once again I came on Monday expecting to leave on Wednesday but I am still here today with hopes of leaving this afternoon. I need to go home and then Rick and I will be coming back to do a Be in Health conference with Pastor Henry.

On Monday, Dustin began to having breating difiiculties again. They increased his oxygen from 40% to 100% and they did another bronchoscopy to get out the fluid from his lungs. This time, however, his oxygen saturation continued to drop which is unusual. It was concerning as to "what do you do when you are on 100% oxygen and just had all the stuff pulled out of your lungs" as that is usually the trick. They took him back upstairs to the critical care unit and he stabilized quickly, got back to his 40% oxygen and seemed well enough and they moved him back to the spinal cord unit the next day.His breathing continues to do well and praise God for the first time in 4 months his left lung was 50% clear on the x-ray. They had brought in a new percussion lung machine that is used at Medical College of Georgia that had never been used over here. They decided Dustin was a good guinea pig and thank goodness it seems to be working well and Dustin likes it a lot. The other ways they beat on your lung to try to get hte mucuous moving, he always hated. In Albuquerque, they used to put his bed updside down and shake him, here he had a vest they wrapped around him and shook him. They also used a vibrator cup thing they would put on his chest. This mew machine actually percusses on the inside of the lung, suctions him and "breathes" oxygen all oat the same time.

Today, his lung is only 25% clear but they will continue with the nes machine and we pray that it will clear up completely. It is hope once again, that the speech therapist can do another swallowing test to see about starting back up on liquids to food. Every time he starts, he has another lung issue and they discontinue the feeding trials due to the possibility it will get into the lungs and aggrevate the situation.

Today is the conference with both sets of doctors from here and from Tampa to discuss the transfer to Tampa. The doctor hear is not wild about it and thinks they can do everything here. We continue to trust God in the decision for the best for Dustin.

Going to go visit Dustin now and see how his night went. I look forward to going home only to trun around and come back here for the weekend for the conference and more time with Dustin. It will be great to work at the conference.

P.S. - the third day at the job was great. It is fun and active and busy. I get soup for free and sandwiches and homemade desserts for half price. So far, I think I only work for food since I have been buying eclairs and napoleon desserts for family and friends. Rick wants me to get a sign saying I work for food!


love to all
mary pat