An Update on Friday

The doctor came in yesterday afternoon and told us that at this point Ryan would have to be put on "hold". He IS still on the transplant list, he just cannot receive lungs right now. (I know there was some confusion with the wording yesterday, so I want to make sure that you know he is still a candidate.) The doctor said that the team had been talking and that they did not feel Ryan's body would handle that major of a surgery very well. He has been in and out of the hospital for the past 5 weeks and has been laying sedated for almost a week so he muscle mass and body tone is not what it should be for transplant. The doctor did think that once they get this infection under control and get a trach in Ryan they would be able to build his strength back up and he would still be a great candidate for transplant. This will probably take several weeks. It will be a long, long road. He told our nurse that Ryan was young and that he has no other organ complications, so he is very optimistic about what the future holds for Ryan. We know that ultimately God is in control and that the lungs Ryan needs will be ready for him when his body is ready to accept them.

Before we left last night they were planning on giving Ryan a blood transfusion. This will also throw some complications our way. There has to be cross-matching done now because of the chance that Ryan's body will create antibodies to the blood. This will limit his donor region to the state of Michigan only, not the original 1500 miles. While this is disappointing news, it is important to remember that there was a 90% chance that Ryan was going to be getting his lungs from the state of Michigan anyway just with the way distribution works. He was also getting ready to have a CT of both his sinuses and his chest. I am not sure exactly what they were looking for, but I am trusting that there were good reasons for it.

For those of you interested in visting, it would be great to have some company. I know that there are a few people already planning on heading down this weekend. Laurel and I are both looking forward to some familiar faces! Please try and let us know ahead of time if you are thinking about coming so that we don't have too many people here at once. Time with Ryan will be limited, but you should be able to see him. We are supposed to limit the number of people in the room to 2, but we have already had 3 of us in there with no problems from the staff.

If you would like an address to reach us at, please leave a comment with your email or email me directly and I will send it to you. I do not want to post our address on the blog for safety reasons.

Thanks again for the continued prayers you are offering up on our behalf, they mean the world to me and I know that God is the only thing giving me strength to handle this situation!