PRAISE, PRAISE, PRAISE GOD!!!

I got a BIG SURPRISE today when I arrived at Isaac's incubator. The nurse said to me in Japanese, can you see? I was like see what? I thought she was talking about this funny looking orange cap they put on his head that made him look like a gangster or a rap star. Then she pointed to his mouth and his nose and I saw that his ventilation tube is out!!!!! Instead, they have a DPAP (Demand Positive Airway Pressure) thingy (don't know what the correct term is) on his nose!!! I almost started jumping up and down in NICU!!!!

I had to look up what DPAP was after I came home and found this:

Demand Positive Airway Pressure (DPAP) - this machine monitors breathing. If spontaneous respiration doesn't occur within eight seconds, DPAP will provide the patient a 'breath' at whatever pressure flow necessary to move air into the lungs. Indications for DPAP usage is intolerable use of CPAP.

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) - a machine which administers a continuous flow of air under pressure via a nose mask to keep airways open and unobstructed.

So Isaac now has a oxygen mask like thing but it just covers his nose. In any case, Dr. Ishii showed up shortly and told me that when they first attempted to take the ventilator out at 10:30 am this morning (I wasn't clear on whether he took it out without any other oxygen help or whether he gave him CPAP), Isaac wasn't doing so well with the CO2 level in his blood rising and him having bradycardia (his heart rate dropping too slow). But his CO2 level and bradycardia improved after they gave him DPAP. Dr. Ishii is on duty for 24 hours and will monitor Isaac. If his CO2 level improves, his SpO2 (oxygen saturation) stays stable and he doesn't have too many bradycardia episodes, they will keep him on DPAP. If not, they will need to put him back on the ventilator.

Please pray for Isaac to keep breathing on his own (and to remember to breathe on his own - i.e. no apnea), that his CO2 leve will improve and that he will not have any bradycardia or other irregular heartbeat episodes.

I talked to Jong this afternoon (his night time as he is currently on PDT) and Jong told me with a lot of confidence that I will find Isaac breathing much better tonight because he prayed for Isaac a lot during his day today. I thought, that's nice, hopefully his SpO2 level would be better today. I did not even in my wildest imagination expect to find him off of the ventilator tonight! Praise God! We just never know when God will answer our prayers. Sometimes (and a lot of times this past 3 months), He wants to teach us patience and tells us its going to take a while to answer our specific requests. But sometimes, He just answers our specific requests so quickly we can hardly believe it. One thing we are assured of is He has and He will always answer our prayers.

It takes quite a lot of energy for Isaac to breathe on his own so he was sleeping most of the time I was there. Please pray for him to continue to build his strength and stamina. Also, this is more of a silly request - when his eyes were open, he kept trying to look down at his nose at the DPAO mask on his nose - so please pray that he won't get cross-eyed trying to look down his nose too much! ^_^

Of all days, I forgot to put the memory card back into our camera today so I couldn't take any pictures. But I did take a short video. I will see if I have time after dinner to try to digitize it and see if I can figure out how to post it (assuming that I don't sound as silly as I usually do when I do my "baby talk" to Isaac). If I sound really silly, I might just try to capture some still shots from the video. ^_^

Thank you so very much for all of your prayers. Please do continue to pray for continued miraculous healing so that Isaac can come home soon!!!

P.S. Many of you may find this out before Isaac's daddy does since daddy is still sleeping as he is in California! ^_^

Sonia