Cue Anxiety

Alright, I WAS doing really well. This weekend was a great distraction because we were so busy. Hammer and I attended a wedding on Saturday which was a blast. The groom was from Kenya and his bride was from the US but they incorporated Kenyan traditions into the ceremony which was really neat. While he did not "pay" for his bride with a flock of goats (as is Kenyan tradition) we did eat goat at the reception dinner. Let me rephrase that, we had the option of eating goat. Hammer ordered goat and I played it safe with a vegetarian tortellini. But I did taste the goat; it tastes like goat. I think Hammer summed it up best when he stated, "It's like I have a petting zoo in my mouth." Nice.

Father's day was awesome...because my father was ALIVE. It really was a day of counting our blessings. Plus his birthday was also Saturday so we really had a feast on Sunday to celebrate it all.

I've been keeping busy with my distractions - I'm loving falling to sleep while reading my book each night. I've also started my knitting project. I REALLY wanted to make this thing called a Pom-Pom Papoose which is for a b-a-b-y but Hammer was worried that it would be to hard on me if things don't go the way we hope they do. And while I want to believe he's wrong, he's right. (darn it!) So I'll hold off of the papoose and instead have started something for our dog, he he he. Hammer doesn't like that either but I told him, "Doggie cloths or baby cloths, pick your poison," and he caved on doggie cloths. So I'm making a pooch pouch which goes around your dog so that they can carry treats, po.op bags, etc. Not that I think our dog is a pack mule but it's a good starter project and Moses would tolerate this quite well. Here is a sample photo

So these distractions have made me realize, TODAY, that I only have FOUR DAYS OF LUPRON at 10 units!!!! When did that happen?? And our egg retrieval is less than 2 weeks away. All of this I'm totally excited for, except one thing...The sounding. The v-a-g-i-n-a-l sounding. I'm really worried because I did horribly bad with my HSG. So bad that I nearly vomited and blacked out on the table and then I bled for days after the procedure. Hammer was supposed to go with me but his work schedule got changed and now he can't. Should I really be this worried? Is this unnecessary anxiety? I was thinking of asking my mom to come with me just in case. Any input would be MOST appreciated!!!

Current Meds: Lupron 10 units
Side Effects: intermittent nausea, burning and redness at injection site, moderate agitation, hot flashes, FATIGUE
Days Post Transfer: 0
# Eggs Transferred: 0
# Eggs Frozen: 0

Successful Surgery

Yesterday God gave us all so much peace about Daddy Hammer's surgery. Even he was calm as they transported him up to the surgical pre-op room. It was that peace that passes all understanding which gave us full confidence that Daddy Hammer would be alright. At 11:45 he went into his 2 1/2 hour surgery. We sat in the cardiac waiting room and about 2 hours into the procedure we got a phone call that Daddy Hammer had come off the heart/lung machine right away and they were closing up. When the surgeon came in to see us he was all smiles. He said that Daddy Hammer had done wonderful and that he was very, very happy with how everything had went. They ended up doing 5 bypasses instead of the expected 3 which was a bit of a shock. But the doctor said that he wanted to make sure that he never needed to come back in for a tune up.

My mom was able to go in and see him for only 20 minutes because they have such big restrictions on post-op visiting on the first day. She said he looked really good for having just gone through major surgery. And she gave the seal-of-approval for his nurse. After that they have you go home and give you phone call updates. At 10 pm we got our update that he was waking up and doing excellent with expectations of getting him off the ventilator in the next few hours. This was our biggest hurdle because of our last ventilator experience. For us this was the test of how he would do recovery wise. He was extubated at midnight (praise the Lord!) Then at 8 am my mom was able to talk to him on the phone. We were so excited for when they would give us the green light to go in and see him. When we got to see him he was sitting up in a chair. It was wonderful to see just how God had prepared him to have a successful surgery.

The Big Day is Here

Sorry for the hiatus but I've been spending my evenings with my dad and away from my laptop. It's been wonderful! Even though it has been a rough week of chest tubes and getting a 1/2 gallon of fluid off of my dad's right lung it has done worlds of good for him. He has made great recovery strides and is now ready for his surgery tomorrow. I have enjoyed the extra time with him, catching him up on the weeks he's missed, and having our whole family together again.

On a cool side note, when my dad had his cardiac attack he was out training for the biking Cure de Tour for diabetes with a local company team. My dad was diagnosed with Type I diabetes when he was just 16 years old so it is near and dear to our hearts. We found out today that the team made my dad the Honorary Co-captain of the team and they are biking in his honor. They had reached their original goal of $10,000 in donations and are now adding an additional $5,000 that will be specifically donated in my dad's name.

My dad's surgery time is not nailed down yet but will be either at 7:30 am or 11:45 am if you would like to pray for him and the skills of the surgeon who will be doing the surgery. Thank you all so much for lifting up my family in prayer these last few weeks!

On a fertility note: We are in the last week of the two week wait. Hammer and I will make a decision about IVF after this weekend when we see how Daddy Hammer does. We may start the process in about a weeks time or hold off one more month until all the stress decreases a bit around here.

Change of Plans

My dad took the weekend to work on regaining his strength. By Sunday he was booking it around the floor with the aid of my brother. His biggest remark was, "It's incredible how weak you get after lying around for two weeks." He is incredibly motivated to get back to normal. His only complaint was a pain in his back on the right side. My family were all worried that he had not seemed to regain his lung capacity in time for the Monday surgery.

Last night around 11 pm Hammer and I prayed that the doctors would have the wisdom to know if dad's lungs were ready. Immediately after we prayed those words the phone rang and it was my mother. The Pulmonologist had just received the chest xray and noted fluid around my dad's right lung. He recommended to cancel surgery in order to evaluate the fluid and put in a chest tube. It was an answer to my prayers. At 1 am daddy Hammer went for a CT scan and then at 8:30 am he had a chest tube placed. While it is incredibly painful for him they were able to take off over 1800 of fluid (which is a lot). If this had not been resolved before surgery he may not have been able to come off the vent again or they could have punctured the fluid during surgery and created a major infection. His surgery has been postponed until this resolves until Wednesday or Thursday. God continues to show us that he is watching over my dad through out this ordeal.

Not Out of the Woods Yet

My dad had his cardiac cath yesterday. It revealed almost 100% blockage in two major vessels, 50%, and 36% in the other two. He will be having triple bypass surgery on Monday. At first I was floored by the news. But then I began thinking about how amazing it is that even in his current state he had no heart muscle damage from the cardiac attack, EKG is normal, Echo was normal with an almost perfect ejection fraction. He beat pneumonia and is completely mentally with it. He is a walking miracle. With his heart he should have suffered a massive heart attack. God is watching over my dad to get him the medical care he needs to keep him around. My family all has that calming and unexplainable peace about all this. Even though he faces a major surgery on Monday we all feel that God is in control. Please pray for that continued peace, for us to just enjoy our extra time with my dad and for skilled hands on Monday.

Another Miracle

They took my dad off the ventilator today!!!!!!!! He started talking to us right away and hasn't stopped since. It's such an amazing gift to have him back. He is completely mentally there and has been keeping us in stitches all day. He says that right now he does not remember anything about that day. He does remember the last two days and specifically remembers his one 'mean' nurse. When she stopped by the room he was still doped up on the sedative and he actually flipped her off. We were floored but then started laughing because she was really mean. So we have been walking on a cloud all day long. Our next step is a cardiac cath and possibly they will place a defibrillator. But for today we are so thankful to God for the miracle of giving us our dad back.

Where to Begin

The last few days have had their ups and downs. So much so it's been difficult to blog because I've either been sitting at his bedside, asleep or working. Sunday was a good day and we were able to talk with him more. Well, actually, we talked and he blinked his eyes for yes and no. We had good breathing trials to exercise his diaphragm to prep him for the vent removal which we hoped would be on Monday. At 8pm on Sunday a lady from my mom and dad's church came to the waiting room and asked us to come down to the chapel. When we arrived there were 25 people from their church who had come to pray for dad and our family. I could not stop crying. For an hour we sang and prayed and lifted up my dad to God for healing. Our biggest prayer was for God to breathe for dad to help get him off the vent and that God would calm his anxious mind.

Monday rolled around and he had a great breathing trial! My mom got the staff to do the trial 'her way' which was the evidence based way that she has researched and taught for years. It went soooo well. The only issue was that the vent tube had irritated my dad's throat and caused it to swell. We had to wait another day until the steroids they give him reduced the swelling. If that darn swelling wasn't there he would have had it pulled out. I had to go back to work but when I came in around 5 pm he was wide awake and wanted to try to write so he could communicate with us. Unfortunately we've had to keep his hands tied down because he is a 'vent-pull' threat to himself. So we did this alphabet thing and while it was completely frustrating to do we did figure out that what he really wanted was to have his hands untied; which we could not do. But we were able to talk to him about what happened and fill him in a bit on the last few days. He responded appropriately, gave us facial reactions with his eyebrows (which were so cute) and even made us laugh. At one point he seemed to get sleepy and my mom said something along the lines of 'we'll have to repeat things because it's like that Groundhogs Day movie in his mind.' My dad's eyes popped open and he gave my mom a funny look and shook his head at her. We all burst out laughing and we were so excited. So while he did not get his tube out God gave us an even better gift, the knowledge that my dad was completely mentally intact. We were all waiting with baited breath on what God would do today.

I think we were not emotionally prepared for today to be a total flop. A new respiratory therapist was on and she did a horrible job. In fact it was so bad the nurse yelled at her and demanded she did it again. But by that time my poor dad was already exhausted and ended up failing the test. Both tests were done before visiting hours opened so my mom was unable to be there with him. This also increased his anxiety and caused him to fail. We also learned that the respiratory staff just implemented this new vent weaning process that is completely non-evidence based and goes against all the leading experts protocol in ventilator weaning (including my mom's). Even our Pulmonologist hates the new protocol but cannot do anything about it. We were all so crestfallen, especially dad. The doctor came in and decided to hold off on putting in a trach for one more day. He hoped that it would give dad an extra day for the steroids to reduced the swelling in his throat and rest up for a better trial. Even he agreed that the trial was done poorly and insisted that my mom be present next time. He also was extremely upset that they still had the neck brace on him. This was supposed to be taken off over the weekend and it didn't happen. He believed that it was contributing to the poor breathing trials. So he demanded that neuro/trama get up to the ICU and take the brace off. Thank God! And for the final trial tomorrow my mom is going to put down an ultimatum. She is going to refuse consent for the trach if they do not allow her to be present at the breathing trial. Trust me when I say, it has been duly noted by the staff.

So my prayer warriors I am calling on you for help. Please pray that tomorrow's breathing trial goes well. I really, really, really do not want my dad to have to have a trach. I worry what that would do to his mental state since I know that he is currently living his worst nightmare. Pray for calm that dad would be focused and listen to my mom's instruction and support to get through the trial.

Today is a Good Day

We got the report that his tests are no longer growing any bacteria, yeast or mold. So for sure now we have him on the right drugs. The doctor is having him work on breathing trials this weekend in order to have him ready for when they remove the vent, hopefully Monday. He has to work on regaining his diaphragm strength first. So far we have had to remind the nursing staff that his breathing trials go better when he is not snowed out of his mind on sedatives. They tried one earlier today when he was completely snowed and surprise, he failed. So my mom talked them into lowering the sedative and trying it again, it worked. How come we have to be the one's to suggest this? Oh well.

We've had a ton of visitors today and it's been so nice to know how many people have been lifting my dad and our family up in prayer. One of the visitors was my dad's friend and colleague. Not only did dad wake up but he kept his eyes on J and raised his eyebrows in response to what he was saying. I just cannot wait to get this vent out so we can talk to him. Prayers for this weekend would be that he continues to have the pneumonia resolve and that he is protected from additional infection risk from being on the ventilator. Oh and that we can take this stupid thing out for good on Monday!!! (That's the biggest one)

Thank you all for your prayers. It has been a long road of ups and downs and day's when things look better and then day's where we feel like we are starting back at square one. But God has remained faithful and part of the reminder to us of that has been your constant prayers. Thank you all so much!

Day by Day

So today wasn't a bad day but it wasn't the day we anticipated either. Daddy Hammer remains stable on the vent but he was coughing so bad we could not do a breathing test and hence he is still on said vent. That was a disappointment. He went without a fever all day and all night Wednesday but Thursday am spiked a temp again of 101. Dr Z was puzzled by it because none of his labs have come back positive for bacteria growth. So we changed antibiotic, again. Then he toyed with putting in a chest tube to drain out some fluid he saw on the chest xray. In the end he decided to take the conservative route and just pulled out a sample with a small needle. Thank goodness he did because he discovered there wasn't enough to toy with in the first place. So they did a CT scan just to make sure. The good news is that there still was very little fluid so we are just dealing with pneumonia, nasty pneumonia but only pneumonia as far as we know.

He had to be sedated pretty heavily most of the day because he kept coughing. Our thought was that maybe yesterday was too busy of a day and it wore him out. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. We are just hoping that the chest xray will be improved. This on again off again fever is the concerning and frustrating part. I'm on night duty and so far there has been a guy who has coded 5 times already and the freaky part is that his/her room is right near my dad's. So every time the code comes over the loud speaker I literally stop breathing until I hear the whole room number. I guess the good news is that the staff are really good here if they can keep someone from coding five times in one day.

I just wish they let me sleep in his room instead of the waiting room. There is this family that literally brought everyone including the guy's great grandchildren and they are all staying here. But they live less than 40 minutes away. And they stay up till 2 am with the tv blaring while the rest of us are trying to sleep. It's funny the 'culture' that develops in these situations. How everyone stakes out their area and 'protects' it. Three of the families we have become close with, prayed with and ask daily about their loved one. But this other one has taken over most of the room and it's been interesting. I know they are just as concerned about their family member too so I can't fault them. Although after only three hours of sleep it's tempting...

Hallelujah!

We have found the right drug! (we hope) The Pulmonologist did a brochoscopy of his lungs to look for foreign objects or something irritating but found nothing, yeah! They cleaned out a bunch of yucky pneumonia and took a sample. As of this morning the culture was not growing anything which is a great sign that we have the right antibiotic. He is still getting a fever through last night but it could a) still be the pneumonia he is fighting b) be a drug response or c) he could have messed up his body temperature regulation from going without oxygen. The last one is a random possibility by the Pulm Doc which they have to at least entertain since no one actually SAW him 'collapse.' Let's hope it's not 'c.'


From what I can tell I think this is probably a result of the pneumonia because his temperatures have been MUCH better today, in fact as of 5 pm he has not needed one drop of Tylenol today. We got the results of his MRI and everything looks perfect. So officially his EKG is perfect, Cardiac Echo is perfect, Brain is perfect and neurological tests are looking positive. This is wonderful news. When ever he wakes up we always make sure to tell him that he is safe, at the hospital and that his tests have all come back normal from his head to his toes. We want to make sure that he does not think he has a brain tumor like my uncle who died exactly one month to the day of my dad's cardiac arrest. And also my dad has always been afraid of being paralyzed or left as a vegetable so we always reassure him that this is not the case.


We did discover today that he needs to be sedated a bit more than we have been giving him starting around 3pm today. The day before he had a mix of the old sedative which takes about 24 to 48 hours to get out of the system. So we thought that maybe he could handle the same amount today but the old stuff is out and it was so not enough. He started to panic a bit because it's just so uncomfortable with a tube down your throat. I had to run out and get the nurse while trying to calm my dad down. They were able to sedate him and get him more comfortable. We are hoping that if the fever stays away tonight and the chest xray is improved that we can work on getting him off the ventilator by Saturday. Please pray for good results tomorrow and another day of improvement.

P.S. I have been so touched by all your prayers and comments of support. It has meant the world to me and my family to know so many people have been praying for Daddy Hammer. My ultimate prayer is for my father to get well so that he can enjoy being "Grandpa Hammer" some day soon!

Update on Dad #4: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Yesterday they had reduced the sedation and we were able to catch him intermittently waking up and he seemed to realize we were there. They've had him so drugged that it's been frustrating for us because we just want to communicate and let him know he is safe and being cared for here. As the day wore on he was waking up more often but began to spike a significant fever around 103 degrees. The day nurse he has had since Saturday was awful and we never left him because we kept having to keep an eye on her all day. Later in the evening he woke up more and I was talking with him and letting him know I was there. When I moved out of his line of sight he started moving toward me and setting off his alarms. I moved back in so he could see me and talked to him letting him know we are all right here. He calmed down and a tear fell from his eye. A few minutes later my brother was talking with him and wanted to let daddy know we were going to let him sleep for a bit and without thinking said, "We're going to take-off now." Suddenly his eyes flipped wide open and he began to raise himself up out of the bed. Mom and my brother had to calm him down. My brother felt so bad but at least we know he understands us, knows it's us and does not want us to leave him alone.

This morning when the doctor's rounded they told us that his lungs had gotten worse. They are doing a bronchoscopy of his lungs to make sure they are using the right antibiotic. The neurologist changed his sedative and he has been responding much better. I spent most of today at his side, holding his hand and talking to him when he wakes up for a few seconds. This afternoon he began coughing and the nurse came in and suctioned him. I went over afterwards to calm him down, stroking his hair and telling him it was OK. His face got all scrunchy and I thought he was in pain but instead he began to cry and this time it was big alligator tears. I continued to stroke his hair, wipe away his tears and let him know it would be ok. I know that my daddy is in there and understands what is going on. I just pray so much that the doctors find out how to treat this pneumonia so we can work to get him off the vent and feeling better. I know this will be a long process but I just can't wait to have my daddy back.

I have to keep reminding myself that God has been by my daddy's side from the beginning and will continue to be there for him. Please pray that we find the right drug to treat my daddy's lungs.

Update on My Dad #3

We have a guardian angel and her name is nurse Agnes. Saturday night was a rough night. The worst one since my dad was admitted to the hospital Thursday. We knew there was a risk for aspiration pneumonia and he had begun to spike a fever and his labs came back positive for staph. Not only that but his vitals were starting to tank. He was on 65% oxygen (normal is 20%) and his ability to absorb oxygen (ABG) was 56% (should be 80-100%). My mom being an ICU nurse saw the writing on the wall and knew he was getting Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) which as a 25% fatality rate. His lungs had developed inflammation because he had aspirated stomach juice into his lungs when he first had his cardiac arrest.

That night we got down on our knees and prayed while nurse Agnes spent the night suctioning, medicating, running labs and adjusting the vent settings. A last ditch effort was made to increase the PEEP setting and decrease the vent to 60%. PEEP stands for Positive end-expiratory pressure and this increases the amount of oxygen that remains in the lungs which hopefully would improve the exchange of oxygen in his lungs. Around noon Sunday my brother and I prayed over my dad again that God would work another miracle in healing his lungs and that the next set of labs would show improvement. Less than one hour later when I took my grandparents (Dad's parents) back to see him I noticed a significant improvement in his pulse and blood pressure. Around 4pm we saw that his oxygen saturation levels on the monitor were at 100% and our nurse, Rachael, came in with a smile on her face. She pulled up the latest lab results and waited for our reaction. They.Were.All.Perfect. Less that eight hours ago he was headed down a dark road and now he was perfect. It was another miracle.

As the evening wore on he became more alert and moving around every time someone came in the room. It was such a stark contrast to the day before when he was barely moving. He was certainly feeling much better. Sunday night we had our angel nurse Agnes again and we knew he was in good hands.

Infertility Update: Hammer and I made the decision to hold off this cycle with everything that is going on with my dad. I just don't think it would be a good decision to start a stressful process while going through another stressful process and I know all I will be worried about for a while will be my dad. I feel good about this decision. And right now the only place I want to be is at my dad's beside.

Update on My Dad #2

So when I changed the name of my blog to Expect Miracles I never imagined just how that would ring true in so many facets of my life. Right now we have witnessed a miracle in my Father's life. Let me tell you just how amazing my God is...

My dad actually works in another city (about 2 hours away from me) even though my parents still have the house I grew up in which is about 20 minutes from Hammer and I. It's a long story but my dad works during the week and comes back home on weekends. My mom commutes between the two homes and the plan was to keep this up until he can retire (this year). Normally the ONLY day my dad is alone is on Thursday. So if this had been just any other week he would have been completely alone and the outcome would have been drastically different.

So my dad had planned a weekend get away for my mom this weekend. They had both come back home on Wednesday because my dad had a meeting Thursday morning here in town and wanted to take the rest of the day off. He asked my brother to go on a bike ride and they headed out at about 3:30 pm. It was a gorgeous day and the bike path was literally crawling with people.

Now my mom was actually extremely on edge all day because Wednesday night she had an awful dream that either my brother or my dad were in the ICU and all she kept saying was, "We have to save the brain, we have to save the brain" Being a former ICU RN she thought maybe that she just had one of those weird dreams but it haunted her all day. Yet she didn't want to say anything because she thought they would think her crazy for being all uptight about them biking. So she kept quite and my dad and brother headed out for their ride. When my brother's tire blew out my mom had talked with my dad and knew that she should expect him home in 30 minutes. When that didn't happen she had been watching the clock and immediately called him. She said she had a pit in her stomach because of her dream even before the EMT answered my dad's phone and told them the bad news.

What we have learned, after talking with the people who saved my dad's life, is the following and it's absolutely the hand of God. My dad was actually found upright, still on his bike, leaning against the support beams of a bridge. So he did not crash his bike and therefore avoided any additional trauma to his body which is absolutely amazing. The couple who found him initially thought that it was just a bike propped up against the bridge because he was slumped over. He did not respond to them but was having labored breathing. This is extremely important that he was at least breathing when they found him because that meant his time without oxygen was very, very short. The man called 911 and the woman knew CPR so they got my dad off of the bike and down onto the ground and had just started resuscitative care when another biker came along. It was a physician who works at the best trauma hospital here in our city. He took over the CPR and when we spoke to him he said that they were able to give great resuscitative care because he went from blue to pink and had a great pulse.

By the time the squad came they had reached the point with CPR where they needed to do a shock paddle to keep up the rhythm. So the EMT shocked him and he immediately returned to a normal rhythm. Now when they reached the hospital the emergency room staff some how didn't get all the info that he really didn't go that long without oxygen so they decided to do the hypothermic protocol. We believe this was also a blessing because when he was coming to in the trauma ER he was not focusing or making purposeful movements. It seems that the decision to do the hypothermic protocol reset my dad's system and allowed his body to rest and return to a stable state.

So while we are still not out of the woods yet we know that the hand of God has been over my father EVEN BEFORE all these events took place. It seems that God knew that my father was going to go through this but He set up everything perfectly so that the best possible situations would occur for the absolute best possible outcome.

He will not be taken off the ventilator until tomorrow because the Pulmonologist says his lungs are too "wet" meaning that he has too much fluid on board. This is an effect of the warming up process because when you are cold the body does not make fluids to keep your body hydrated but when you warm up it does. It's not a concern just that he's not quite ready yet. So they are keeping him mildly sedated so he does not wake up too much, panic and pull out the ventilator tubing that he needs to breathe. But we know that he is mentally OK for now and just needs a bit more rest. We are taking sleep rotations so that two of us are always here at a time and he is never alone.

Prayer requests are that he can get off the ventilator tomorrow and that he does not develop pneumonia which is a risk from being on a ventilator. I am so thankful for all of your prayers and just had to share how Great our God is with you all. He hears our prayers!!!

On a side note: While God was busy taking care of my father with ALL of these amazing little miracles, He still found time for me. On Friday morning we heard back from the lab. Hammer's results were 8.5% strict morphology. This is below normal (14%) which means we do require IVF intervention and it is likely the reason why we have not conceived on our own. But we do not require ICSI so we can try for natural fertilization. And not only that but Aunt Flow didn't show up until TODAY. So when I talked to the nurse she said that I can call and let her know what we want to do for this cycle as late as Sunday and she would call in BCP script for me if we decided to start cycling for IVF this month. Right now I just want to get my dad off of the ventilator. So I think I'm going to wait to make a decision based upon getting him extubated and then go from there.

It is so humbling to think that here I was fussing and worrying about labs and wondering why this would happen. Meanwhile my God was not only in control of my little "situation" and working everything out perfectly, but also intimately involved in my father's life and blatantly showing us His presence and Almighty Power. I had been reading Job on Wednesday evening
Job 31:35 "Oh, that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defense - let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing" Job is saying, "what have I done to deserve this? Let him who knows my offenses come forth and prove it." And what follows a few chapters later is God's defense where He declares to Job that He is God and controls all things, knows all things, designed all things, and is above all things. That He is in control of the small things and the big things. One of the things God says repeatedly is, "Brace yourself like a man; I will question you and you shall answer me." God questioned me on who is in control of my fertility, our IVF schedule (the small things) as well as who is in control when it comes to my father's life. And my answer:

"I know you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, "Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge? Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, "Listen now and I will speak; I will question you, and you will answer me. My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.

Job 42:1-5

Update on My Dad

Last night they began the warming process at 11pm. His body temperature was 92 and they brought him up to 98 over the next six hours. That is two hours faster than what they anticipated because he was responding so well. About 5 am they decided to take him of the sedation to see if he would respond. Around 6:15 we were in the room and he started to raise his eyebrows and his arms twitched. The nurse was trying to hide us in the room during the rounding hours so we could be there when he woke up but we got 'caught' and were told to leave. About 20 minutes later the nurse ran into the waiting room shouting that he was awake. We went running into the ICU and his eyes were wide open. He focused on us, recognized us, understood he was at the hospital and when my mom said, "you had one heck of a bike ride" he acknowledged it and tried to talk (he is still on a vent so he can't right now). We are not out of the woods yet as he still needs to get off the vent, continue to progress mentally, hopefully not get aspiration pneumonia (he is starting to show signs) and figure out what caused all this. But right now all the signs are great. Keep up the prayers I know they are working!!!!!

Please Pray: When It Rains...

It pours. I need your prayers so much right now. IVF has taken a major back seat to what is going on with my family in the last 24 hours.

My dad was out biking last night at about 6:00 pm with my brother. My brother's bike tire blew a flat and his friend came and picked him up. My dad decided to finish his ride since he was only about 30 minutes from home. He called my mom to let her know he would be back at 6:30pm. He was on a crowded bike path and almost home when he stopped riding and suddenly collapsed. From witnesses we have learned that a couple saw him fall and immediately attended to him, calling 911. A physician was on the bike path and saw the couple laying my father down and taking off his helmet. Within less than a minute from his collapse the MD began CPR. He said that my father's color came back and he had a good femoral pulse. The squad was there in two minutes and because he had collapsed near the path entrance they had NO issues getting to him. He was in V-fib when they arrived and shocked him only once and got his heart back into rhythm.

Meanwhile at home my mom saw that it was 6:35 pm and told my brother (who had made it home by this time) to call my dad. When my brother called the EMT picked up the phone and told him that they were taking my dad to the hospital. My brother called me and we all made it there about 10 minutes after the ambulance had arrived.

There were concerns of trauma so they took him to get a CT scan immediately. My dad was intubated and sedated. All the labs and tests came back negative. Because the hospital did not yet know how fast CPR had been delivered from the onset of the incident they decided to initiate the hypothermic protocol. That means that right now my dad is being sedated and his body temperature decreased for 24 hours. The reason is because it helps protect the brain if he went without oxygen at all. The medical decision to do this was because they have no idea what happened and there are no risks only benefits. We are now just waiting until they will begin to slowly bring up his body temperature at about 11pm tonight. It will be a long 14 hour process but we are praying that he shows no signs of brain damage from lack of oxygen.

All of his tests are coming back normal and he is maintaining his blood pressure on his own. Please pray that as they bring him out of the hypothermia he begins to respond and shows no signs of neurological damage.

Thank you all so much in advance!