Tuesday

Time for another update...

My hubby is here and Mom is home safely!

I'll try to update in the order events have occured.

First, Mom has met a sweet family here while walking the halls. Their son (28 years old), Joey, received 3rd degree burns to 95% of his body at the Pasadena Petrochemical plant explosion. When he arrived at the hospital, they said he might survive about five hours. The fire was last Tuesday. He's still here with us!! Praise the Lord!

They give me about 10-15 minutes twice a day that I'm allowed to go for a walk and leave the Epilepsy unit. Yesterday we used one of the walks to go meet the family. Wow!! So unbelievable. I'm tearing up as I type this. When we got off the elevator, the entire family was in tears. They told us that his lungs were collapsing and they didn't expect him to make it. After that, his mother took my hand, and the hands of her pastors that were there, and then selflessly asked the pastors to pray for me. Whoa! Her son is clinging to life and she's asking for prayers to be lifted on my behalf. What a humbling moment.

B and I went to check on him today and (drum roll......)

He is doing very well. They put him on a new machine for his lungs and he is doing much better. The docs said that they believe he knocked on Heaven's door about three different times yesterday, but Heaven isn't quite ready for him. So, please pray for Joey; his mother & father, Debbie & Joe; his brother, Sean; his wife, Brandy; and three kiddos.

After that, Mom and I went for a walk outside. Though I have a window in my room, it doesn't quite compare to fresh air. Here we are outside!!! You can see the little bag that I have attached to me at all times with all of the EEG cords and what not...

Then, my hubby arrived.

On his way in, he passed the infamous Red Duke, Aggie Class of '50.
More info on Dr. Duke.

Anyway, he's a trauma surgeon here and is known for walking the halls with his dog, and he actually lives on site. So, B passes him in the hall and stops to say, "Howdy, my name is B Fox, Fightin' Texas Aggie, Class of '02." Dr. Duke turns to B and says, "Nice to meet you and those are some nice britches son." Sorry I don't have a pic of B in his "nice britches," but they were a pair of super colorful plaid shorts.

So, then B gets to the room, I get my hugs, and our friend, Z, got here (Dr. S as I referred to her in the last post). It was fun to get to see her again. She is such a sweet encourager and points us right back to the Lord and His plan and will in all of this.

Today is B's Mom's b-day. So, we started the day with calling to sing Happy Birthday to her. They were trying to repair the sinks in my room and so the singing didn't actually happen, but we got to wish her a Happy Birthday!

This morning, the doc came in and said he doesn't really think the steroids are working. As we were discussing that, I had a seizure...point made. Due to the location, they are beginning to believe that surgery is way too risky of an option. So, I had my last steroid dose today and he's going to do some IV anti-seizure meds tomorrow. Then, he wants to try a couple of weeks at a time on other anti-seizure meds. He said that since I have so many seizures, he thinks the trials can be quick because we will know if it's working very soon. He also told us that the Cleveland Clinic is best known for their specialty of focal epilepsy, whereas, Mayo is a bit more specialized in General Epilepsy. So, I believe we are going to postpone our appt. with Mayo.

However, on that same topic, we mentioned that Dr. Luders would be here next week from Cleveland and that they would present my case. Then, B threw out the idea that I could meet with him. Dr. K jumped on the idea and is going to try to get it scheduled for me to meet face to face with Dr. Luders next Thursday. Dr. Luders is not credentialed here and so any advice he gives me isn't considered the advice of the hospital, but it allows him the opportunity to meet me face to face after seeing my case report and then give them more ideas to pursue. So, we are praising the Lord for that opportunity, as well.

Finally, if any of you are in the Houston area, we would love to see smiling faces. Since I can only leave for about 15 minutes twice a day, it gets a little boring up here. I would typically read, but that seems to cause more seizures.

Thank you all for your prayers!! We are ready for answers!!!