Tyler’s blood gases remain wonderful, so they have weaned him down a bit more on the ventilator. All his vital signs are terrific with every wean. He is opening his eyes more and with purpose. I can’t tell you enough how amazing it is to look into those eyes, which for the last four weeks had been fixed and unfocused.
While Tyler’s lungs are looking great, his GI bleed continues and is a real problem. Today Tyler had a very important GI consult to decide what to do about performing an endoscopy to address his GI bleed. The issue with the damage the CT scan showed is that it puts Tyler at higher risk of the scope causing a perforation, which would cause a bigger bleed and require emergency surgery.
However, the GI specialist feels strongly about doing the endoscopy as early as tomorrow, or if Tyler starts losing blood at a greater rate, as early as today. He is confident that the benefit of stopping a bleed outweighs the risks of the procedure. Doing nothing has its own risks: Tyler is getting five or more units of blood a day and could get infected by or react badly to any individual bag of blood.
Tomorrow is Ron’s birthday, and it would be such a wonderful gift if Tyler can have a successful procedure which locates the source of his bleeding and can stop it! I have no doubt that God will get Ty through any complications that arise from here on out! He has such a hard road still to travel and will continue to need lots of prayer. Please join us in praying that Tyler’s internal bleeding can be stopped and that he will be protected from all the blood products in the meantime.