Chase’s Breathing Improvement is Incredible

First of all, we’d like to thank everyone who joined us at the prayer service (in person or in spirit). It was really uplifting for our whole family, especially Chase. We truly appreciate all the support and prayers - we have no doubt that it’s making a huge difference in Chase’s recovery, as evidenced by his most recent improvements.

Over the past few days, Chase has continued to increase the amount of time that he’s been able to trigger his own breathing using the pressure support on our ventilator. We just hit a huge new milestone – Chase has gone 24 hours with this mode (with a few short breaks for breathing treatments to ensure his lungs remain clear). We’re ecstatic to say the least, although we were a bit tenuous on whether or not to let him keep going through the night. After talking it over with our Respiratory Therapist, he encouraged this as the next step in our progress, as long as we have fail safe measures in place (monitoring, automatic default of the vent, etc.). So we went ahead and did it last night and Chase pulled through with flying colors (no alarms triggered at all) – Alleluia, Praise the Lord!

The next step toward independence from the vent will be gradually reducing the amount of pressure support that Chase needs to maintain his oxygen saturation levels. We’ll be slowly reducing this during the day and increasing again at night to ensure that he sleeps deeply without any distress from the breathing.

We’ll be seeing the Neurosurgeon again tonight – I’m sure he’ll be interested to hear about this latest development to further support our conviction that Chase is certainly improving, despite their pessimistic outlook. The evidence is becoming overwhelming to the point that they will not be able to refute it any longer. We’re also researching the possible use of brain-computer-interface tools that will enable us to potentially communicate with Chase, or interpret his brain waves (so much for their contention that he was “brain dead”). This is very excited technology that could come in handy while we’re working through the next phase of his recovery.

Thanks again to all the Prayer Warriors for remaining vigilant with us in this battle. Chase is continuing to make us proud with his incredible determination to fight through these challenges.

God Bless!

John & Carol
Chase & Barbara Ann