Today Dad's spirits are about the same, however his breathing is not. I walked in this morning to find he is on 100% oxygen on the ventilator, which means he is doing none of the work himself. Yesterday and the day before he was at 70% which is acceptable considering the serious condition he is in. His surgeons continue to be optimistic despite the willingness the hospital doctors show to give up and discharge Dad into an acute care facility. This difference of opinion is because the hospital doctors are looking statistically at Dad's condition, they say "everything is chronic" and there is nothing more to do. The surgeons sing quite a different tune saying that from experience they've seen people just like our father that walk into the hospital a couple years later to thank people for never giving up on them.

Currently in his lungs there is a lot of gunk of some sort (infection and mucus that I believe stems mainly from the hole in his esophagus) that needs to be suctioned out many times a day. There are a few methods they use for this. Firstly he has a tracheostomy, a hole in his throat for ventilator access. There are a few hookup kind of things on this tube that's coming out of his neck. One spot is for something like an inhaler, another is for a vapor breathing treatment, and another is a tube which slides in and out of his windpipe and lung that sucks this gunk up and out. Another method is more undesirable because it's a clear sign that the ventilator (which is life support at this time) isn't good enough, for this they take the ventilator off and use a tube and a balloon to manually get this stuff out of there. The third method isn't used so often and that's a bronchoscopy, using a camera on a thin tube to see where the mucus is and another tube sucks it out when it's found. Today he is scheduled for one of these.

Due to improper oxygen levels, Dad's heart is having some trouble as well, those details are unclear to me but there will be updates. I know that as you read this you may say to yourself, "Jeez, doesn't this guy get a break?" But really, at this point these things are being controlled, he's not going downhill. Like I said, he's standing his ground and that's an achievement everyday. Dad is very alert and isn't afraid to ask for pillows under his legs or swabs for his mouth. If you come in and joke around with him he'll laugh right along with you.

I'm Adah, his youngest daughter who writes this blog. My email address is on the profile page, h_adah@yahoo.com. I answer my dad's cell phone so drop a line if you want. Also we really want people to leave comments here so they could be read to Dad. To do that there is a link on the bottom of every entry that tells how many comments there are (0 comments, 3 comments, etc), click on that to leave one. If you have any pictures with our dad I will post them on here. Thank you for all your prayers. No matter what, God never leaves a man behind. I'm sure my dad knows this and he's grateful for all the support he's getting.

Thanks again, more to come.