Waiting... To Exhale

We were told Stan would be taken into surgery today to assess the graft. He was originally scheduled to go in tomorrow, but the surgeon decided to move it up. We waited patiently all day, and when Maxine decided the pregnant girls needed to go home to sleep (10:30 pm), the phone rang and they took him into surgery. He is in surgery as I type this update.

We did have an exciting development today. When we got back to the hospital after church and after taking Karen to the airport, the doctor wanted to see Maxine. Since Stan has been intubated for nearly three weeks, they would like us to consider a tracheotomy. After a discussion with the doctor, they did a trial with Stan breathing on his own. They were impressed when he breathed on his own for ten minutes, and surprised when he made it over an hour. This completely exhausted him. The plan is to wait a few days, hopefully to wean him off the ventilator and avoid a tracheotomy. Please pray hard.

Robert is a farmer now. Monica, Melissa and Roy are headed back to Saskatoon tomorrow. During the week, we will be updating the blog from there, based on phone reports from Maxine. We will be driving down to Regina on the weekends.

Please pray the graft will take well, and he will gain strength to be able to breathe on his own soon.