Katie Update #8

Well, first of all I apologize for the extended period between updates.
It has been a tiring few days, and occasionally I find myself a bit too
tired to think, much less write coherently. Assume, though, that no news
is good news for now. As I wrote in an earlier update, bad news both
arrives and travels faster than good news, or in this case, news that
reports essentially the status quo.

Katie remains physically healthy. She is 100% over her staph infection
and is maintaining a temperature below 100 (often below 99), which is
very good. She is breathing well (though she still has some limited
fluid in her lungs), and all of her blood test continue to indicate that
she is handling her medically induced coma well. Certainly things could
change here, but we believe that she has somewhat "passed the test" in
terms of her medical stability. Neurologically, she is still giving the
doctors fits, however. Her liver is so strong that she has started to
develop a significant tolerance for the Pentobarbitol. This is good news
for her liver, but frustrating for the doctors because they are having a
hard time putting her brain to sleep like they want. Even with a strong
dosage, she is still showing some brain activity, and she is still
having periodic seizures. As I left her this morning, the nurses were
administering a higher dose of the drug, so with luck this will succeed
in getting her back into "burst suppression," which is what the
neurologists want to see (we now have 3 neurologists on the "team" as
well as 2 neurology students, so we are getting a lot of collective
brainpower--uugh, no pun intended).

So in all, things still look pretty good. She still is a bit of a
mystery for our doctors in terms of exactly what is causing the
encephalitis and at times in terms of how she is responding to
medications, but all of the doctors remain confident that she will
eventually pull through this. Aside from sleep deprivation and the
exhausting effects of the emotional roller coaster we've been riding, my
parents and I remain in pretty good shape. Ron and Melrose have been
able to sleep at home the past few nights, which has been really good.
I've manned the night shift, getting a good bit of sleep in a chair in
Katie's room and usually supplementing it with a nap at home during the
day, so I'm doing fine as well. Spirits remain high most of the time,
and your continued thoughts and prayers have kept us all uplifted.

Tom Greene is out of surgery and going through the pains of recovery
from a fairly invasive procedure. The final results are not in, but his
surgeon feels confident that his problem is one that is treatable. God
willing, the final results today will confirm this and his family and
friends will all be greatly relieved.

Thanks as ever for your prayers and support. I will do my best to keep
the long inter-update delays to a minimum. God bless.

Paul