HOPE

Four months ago today we walked out of an Ukraine Mental Institution with Selah and Sarah. Three weeks ago today the accident happened. Today Selah had her g-tube and trach put in. She did great thank God! Tonight I can look at her sweet little face without all the tape and tubes!

The plan is to try and wean her off the vent. Right now the setting is very low, 8 breathes a minute, she is doing all the breathing over that. The doctors expect her to be able to breath totally on her own. The reason she had to have the trach is that she is not swallowing/gagging or coughing and would aspirate on her saliva. When she gets the cough/gag reflex back the trach will be able to come out. You notice I said when and not if....I believe she will get the cough/gag back!

Since this happened three weeks ago, God has answered many prayers. Our first answered prayer is that Selah lived! She was not expected to live at all! We were repeatably told she would not live...but she did. Second, we prayed for the fevers to go and they did. Third we prayed for her to have a corneal reaction and she did. Fourth we prayed for her kidney function to recover and it did. Fifth we prayed for some neurological response and we believe she responded to Jon today before her surgery.

She has had some movements but they have not been "good purposeful" movements. They were what is called "posturing" which indicated neurological damage. All her limbs move at the same time in response to pain/pressure or stimulation. Today she seemed to make some purposeful movement when Jon said "Selah come to daddy" She seemed to lift and turn her head towards him (and he was on her left side which is not the side she seems to favor. Her limbs did not move all together (which was good-less chance of this being posturing) She did it 4 times ONLY when he said "Selah come to daddy" Then I called the nurse into see it. She didn't think it was posturing but said she wasn't sure of what she was seeing.

I wasn't sure if I was going to share this...it is a very small step and she needs to show constancy with this. We have been disappointed before with Sam who has done something once or twice and then NEVER did it again. So we are cautious about getting too excited about this and really would appreciate restraint on your part too LOL! Certainly it is good and anything that is not a step backwards is great but we have been extremely disappointed in some small strides Sam made that he never could repeat again to be too excited UNTIL we see a good consistent pattern. But we are excited and do feel like it was a true response.

The doctors have told us they feel all of her cerebral brain function is gone. That 's the part of the brain that is her intellect and her personality. They feel she only has a small part of her brain stem left The brain stem controls the basic functions like breathing, pain, temperature control (the concern with the fevers), gag/cough reflexes etc.... So since she doesn't seem to have even all of her brain stem function, it is hard for them to think she has anything above it. I don not think the doctors are trying to mislead us. They see near drownings all the time and know how things usually go. I believe they would be thrilled to see her exceed their expectations but they have seen so much they do not want us to get our hopes up.

So we are cautiously optimist and we are trusting in God. We are very thankful for the care she has received here at Strongs'. This is a great hospital with a wonderful approach to the whole person and family. So while we are thankful for the care she has received physically we know our real HOPE is in the Lord. We have been told over and over that there is nothing that can be done for her neurologically....

So please pray that Selah will respond more and more neurologically. Pray that all will see it and that God will get the glory for it. That is one thing that is for sure, if she recovers neurologically it will be God. Nothing can be done by any doctors for her at this time. They acknowledge that. We have some hope for some stem cell research but that is in the future.

Our hope is in God who made heaven and earth...pray for Selah!