Happy Birthday Barbara Ann!

We had a very busy weekend, starting with Barbara’s 8th B-day party on December 7th. Carol did an awesome job organizing a belly dancing party at our house for all of her classmates. They had a great time getting a private lesson from a professional belly dancer and they all loved their coin belts. With all of the focus on Chase, we’ve been delinquent in providing an update on Barbara. Fortunately, she’s been doing great through all of this – according to her teacher, she’s very well-adjusted and generally quite happy at school. She’s also been staying very busy with activities – gymnastics, swimming, brownies, etc. which she really enjoys and this has kept her spirits up along our journey.

We also had another visit today by a large group of Prayer Warriors from Chase’s school, Cranbrook which filled our house with holiday cheer. They sang lots Christmas carols and then prayed over him. We have no doubt that this went a long way to lift his spirits and boost his recovery. After they left, we decided to try to take Chase completely off the ventilator and see how he would do – to our pleasant surprise, he lasted over 20 minutes with no problem at all. All of his vitals (oxygen saturation, heart rate, etc.) were great the whole time. Although he probably could’ve continued longer, we decided to stop at that point because it was getting late in the evening and we didn’t want to stress him out. Nevertheless, this was another excellent indication that Chase continues to steadily improve every day. We’re going to start measuring and charting how long he can tolerate being completely off the vent so that he can get the exercise and build up his strength.

Thanks again to all for the prayers and support – especially Kay, Kathleen, Lucy, Patty and anyone else who helped in organizing the sing along today, as well as all those who attended. It moved us all beyond what words can describe. We are truly grateful for all the love that we are being surrounded by throughout this experience.

God Bless!!

John Carol Sammut
Chase Barbara