Update from Gary 8:45 am Sunday 5/18

Last night at 10:30pm the doctor's successfully changed out the Port they thought might have be the cause of the strep infection. X-rays after showed it was in the right location and a clean new Port is now available. Gary spent the night with Dylan & they both got a few hours of sleep here & there. From 2-5am is the toughest because many "change outs" bags, tubes, medicines, etc... take place & its hard to get any rest. Then when they do fall asleep from 5-7am, the Nurse rotation begins and Gary has to leave from 7-8:30am for the change over. Debbie called at 8am and said she set the alarm, but never heard it go off!! :) Praise the Lord for that blessing of extra sleep!! She's on her way to the Hospital to relieve Gary and he'll go back to the SECU house for catch up sleep then will join Debbie back at the Hospital by 1-2pm. PRAY he gets some much needed sleep as it is hard to sleep when it's daylight.

Dylan is not experiencing much pain from the new Port they surgically had to put in. The new, lower dose pain medicine seems to take just enough of the edge off to keep Dylan restful. This pain medicine has not had any side effects, so lets PRAY that this continues to work. They want to keep Dylan off all morphine as much as possible as this did make him cloudy & very unclear in his mind. They are continuing to empty the fluid from his stomach to be able to get a clear X-ray to find out what is possibly causing all this bloating. They only had to change the bed sheets & pads out once last night from the fluid that is still leaking out from the sores over his body. Gary said there was still a lot of fluid, but 1 time is better that 3 the night before. This means the slower 24/7 ICU dialysis is working much better at removing more liquid at a slower pace. Praise!

For family & friends that are away, this is the reason Dylan was moved back into ICU. The dialysis machine Dylan was using on an every other day process in the BMU would strain his blood pressure, so they could not do it as long, and therefore could not get as much fluid from his body as they wanted. They when he developed a strep infection, the doctors thought it best to move Dylan back to ICU because there is so much more 1 on 1 care. He is still in good spirits when we left last night after the new port was put in. He is a remarkably strong young man and such a witness to the power of Christ in Him!

Continue to PRAY for the doctor's need of wisdom for Graft vs Host, the strep infection which antibiotics do seem to be working, the build up of stomach fluid to be removed, the pain medicine at low doses & working well and much needed sound sleep for Dylan, Gary & Debbie. This will be a day of rest and waiting on results and more progress to be made! Our God has an unlimited amount of resoures! To God Be the Glory! Phil.4:19 for today.