What is happening to Carolyn.......

This entry is written by Carolyn’s father. Her mother and I and the family have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of love for Carolyn. We appreciate all of your faith and prayers and we will continue to appreciate your faith, prayers and fasting in behalf of Carolyn. She is critically ill and it may be weeks before she recovers. We have been overwhelmed by how fast and how well social networking works. Responses to posts on this blogspot are from her friends from around the world. Comments on her Facebook wall are the same. She loved her friends not only in the US but in England and in Norway as well.

With this introduction I want to explain about her conditions so you have some appreciation for how sick she really is. She is currently in a medically induced coma. In this condition she is on a special bed called a Robo-bed by the Doctors. This bed allows her to lie on her tummy so her lungs are free to move more easily as Carolyn breathes. She is also on a venelator that is a large tube down her throat and esophagus that helps her to breathe and get enough oxygen. The Robo-bed is cylinder in shape and rocks very slowly back and forth. We hope to post a picture so you can see it. Periodically she is moved to her back. The goal is for her to lay and breathe the same amount of time on either her tummy or her back without any of her vital signs being affected. These vital signs include her oxygen absorption, blood pressure, pulse, temperature. The doctors do not know how long she will be on this bed. Some of the concerns they have include: is the pneumonia still damaging the lungs, is it a virus or a bacteria, if it is bacteria has it spread to the other organs (liver, kidneys), how inflamed are her lungs, etc.

Once she is taken out of the Robo-bed she will be kept in a comatose state until after the lungs are free from infection and are not inflamed. At this point she will be removed from the coma. Once out of the coma she will be extremely weak and will still need to be nourished through a tube until she is able to eat solid foods and walk on her own.

During the time she is comatose there is a risk of other complications occurring that could worsen her condition. Given all of these variables the doctors cannot predict how long she will be on the Robo-bed, once out of the bed how long she will kept comatose or how long her recovery will be after she is removed from the comatose. This whole process could be days, weeks or months. A lot of it hinges primarily on how well and how fast she heals once the infection is gone. The one thing I do know is that she will be on her computer and cell phone wanting to thank each of you for your love and concern.

I hope this helps you understand how critically ill Carolyn is and why she will continue to need your continued faith and prayers for perhaps weeks. We will keep you informed on progress as we receive it from the doctors. It will be the same very general terms that we are receiving. It is hard to remember that they are looking for very small gains.

We have been told that the team of doctors, respiratory specialists and nurses working on her are perhaps among the best pulmonary teams in the world – for that we are extremely grateful. We are, again, grateful for the love and concern you have for our daughter – we love each of you for this.

Val and Nancy