Minor Changes

Today Lynnea's ventilator settings were weaned down even further; technically, her current settings are considered settings that are appropriate for an extubation attempt, but there is no big rush to extubate her. At this point they haven't begun doing any pressure support trials with her, so they most likely won't actually attempt to extubate at least until tomorrow afternoon sometime. There are several reasons not to rush to extubate her, one important thing being that they are giving Corey and me some time to discuss how we would like to handle things if extubation doesn't go well -- do we want them to reintubate, or would we rather make a conscious decision at this point to just let her go -- and the truth is that for us at this point, it is a little too soon to make that kind of decision.

One of the things that makes a decision like that extra challenging is the fact that no one can give us any real indication of how much of a recovery Lynnea will make from a neurological standpoint, or even if she will recover at all; there is no way for anyone to know whether or not we will ever truly be able to get "our Lynnea" back, and there is no way to know at this point if fighting to keep her alive no matter what is simply prolonging her suffering, or if there is a chance that we would be able to have more meaningful time with her. These are things that simply cannot be predicted.

There were not any huge changes in Lynnea's condition today, but I certainly noticed some small ones (exactly what they mean for her long-term outcomes are impossible to tell). She moved more today than she did yesterday. Today I definitely saw her move all four of her limbs several times, and not only was the number of times she moved more than yesterday, but the amount that she moved each limb was more than yesterday. It was still not clear if these were purposeful movements, or if they were still primarily reflexive, but she moved. She had her eyes open today and yesterday. Yesterday she clearly did not "look" at anyone, or anything -- she just stared ahead and her eyes didn't move -- she didn't track objects, and she didn't move towards the sound of a voice. Today her eyes moved more, and this evening I got the feeling that perhaps she was trying to move them towards the sound of voices, though it was not clear enough to know for certain. She still seems to have a lot of pain in her left leg which has a blood clot, and it is very sore from the several attempts that it took to put in an IO while she was coding. It is still very sore today, though she didn't cry every single time it was touched today.

We all appreciate all of the prayers during this time. The doctors do not hold out a lot of hope for her to recover her neurological function, but there is still a small chance that she could recover some of it, and for God, this is not something beyond his ability -- nothing is. For now, there is no talk of evaluating her for a heart transplant because, in her current condition she is not eligible for transplant. If her neurological function improves, it might be possible to consider her for transplant. From a cardiac standpoint, she does not have a lot of time left with her current heart -- no one can say for sure how long, but most likely only weeks, possibly a few months. The decisions that Corey and I are being asked to make about how we would like to proceed from here are very difficult ones. Please continue to pray for healing for Lynnea, but also wisdom, strength, and comfort for us as we face these decisions head on.