Katie Update #13

I think we were starting to get too lighthearted, and Katie obviously wanted to remind us that she is, in fact, still in a coma and in critical condition. Last evening at around 8 she gave me a MAJOR scare. After the nurse turned her from her back to her left side, something they must do regularly in order to keep the lungs working properly, Katie stopped taking in oxygen and her blood's oxygen saturation levels plummeted. Essentially, she was asphyxiating, and the nurse couldn't get her breathing again. She immediately started manually pumping in air and called for assistance. Eventually, I think half the floor made it into Katie's room to try and get things righted. It was very tense, but after a few minutes (perhaps the longest of my life) things settled down and Katie started taking in oxygen properly again. Aside from some seriously frayed nerves on the part of the staff and especially myself, she seemed to recover fully. An x-ray of her chest showed no obvious problems (thank God). The doctors gave a logical explanation for the complication, but I don't think I could relay it back accurately now. Suffice it to say that we are no longer taking her medical stability for granted.

On the positive side, though, despite all of the stress that this put her through (heart rate, blood pressure, and intra-cranial pressure skyrocketing), she had no seizure activity whatsoever. At this point, we believe it has been four full days without seizure. There is still some abnormal brain activity, but the doctors now have decided to start lowering her Pentobarbitol levels and returning her brain to full function. I'm unclear as to how long this process will take, but they are likely to reduce the levels very slowly and monitor her brain activity throughout the process. So here begins another of many really big tests that Katie must pass. PLEASE continue to pray extra hard that she regains full brain function without further seizures or other seriously abnormal brain activity. Her body has taken a major beating over the past 18 days and we really need for this to be her last Pentobarbitol cycle.

Thanks and I'll do my best to keep everyone posted as things continue to progress.

Paul