3/5/2014: J's surgery has gone well. He is out and in recovery. They will soon carry him back to rehab and are asking for prayers for as little pain as possible during the transport. This is the last big hurdle he had to cross. Let's pray for fast healing/recovery so he can go home in a couple of weeks.
3/4/2014: Let's pray them through the final round of this hard fight! Update from M: "We are officially 26 1/2 hours away from the elusive skin graft surgery we all have been waiting for. Tomorrow at 10am, the rest of John's open wounds will be closed. The doctor said he could literally be home within a couple of weeks!! As soon as the skin grafts have healed completely, his therapy and dialysis would move to an outpatient basis, and he would get fitted for his prosthesis. Please pray for no complications, no infections, no rejections, no more hurdles lol, and for peace for J and I both. Thank you all for the continued thoughts and prayers. We love you all so much!!"
2/17/2014: After a day of more challenges and another failed attempt at dialysis, J was taken back to the main hospital. After being examined by the infectious disease doc, he was admitted to ICU who feels J should have been admitted long before now with the infection in the ashe cath. Please keep praying. Initially, his bp went very high with a sudden high fever during dialysis, but then it dropped very low. They have not been able to get it to come up since. The nonchalant attitude at rehab has been replaced with a sense of urgency from the main hospital's ICU staff. The infectious disease doctor is running several tests. Please keep praying for J, for his girlfriend, M, and for his family. This is a hard, hard journey they are on.
2/16/2014: J has still not had the surgery for the skin grafts to close the big wounds he sustained when he accidentally shot himself. There has been a mystery infection causing high fevers and elevated blood pressure. He still needs dialysis 2-3 times a week but there has been improvement, so he needs prayer for his kidneys too. Here is the latest update and prayer needs:
"Over the past few days, the crazy cat and mouse game has continued. Friday during dialysis, J started vomiting, his fever spiked and his blood pressure skyrocketed to 220/160. They called off dialysis early and later they drew cultures straight from the ashe cath that is used during dialysis and boom, cultures started growing. So we know the cath is contaminated. We just don't know with what yet. All weekend, we've been lead to believe that since the infection isn't in his blood, just in the cath, that there was a chance that surgery would still go on tomorrow. We even came very close to having preparatory dialysis this morning, on a Sunday, to make sure his fluid and potassium levels were acceptable for the morning labs. Then the Doctor came in. He had called the plastic surgeon at home and when they talked about the blood pressure numbers along with the fever, naturally the decision came back to hold off on surgery.
J's first words after the doctor left the room were, "I'm never going home...".
He's napping again right now while i'm writing this. It's probably the best thing for him to do right now, to cope with the disappointment."
Please pray for J. After so many setbacks and such a long stay in the hospital, he is understandably discouraged.
Thank you!
