Saturday, May 4, 2013

Prayer Needed for Samuel


Saturday -  9:45 am  I just came from seeing Samuel and meeting with all the teams of doctors that have done an amazing job of helping Samuel. At this point Samuel is stable and remains in the Shock-Trauma ICU. As you can imagine, he has many tubes. They are keeping him sedated. He never woke while I was in the room. I was able to stay for almost two hours this time. He had a third CT scan during the ...night. They casted his right leg this morning. He also has a cracked vertebrate in the t-spine. Today the bruises are starting to show up, but for what he has been through he actually looks pretty good. Most of his injuries are internal. He will have surgery today to look for additional injuries and to possibly try to close his abdomen. He still has low blood pressure. They are giving him more blood products now. They said it will also help with some clotting support. His blood pressure is better than it was, not dangerously low, but still of a concern. He has a long road to recovery ahead of him. They said today he may develop some skin issues that sometimes happen after being so chilled and being in the ditch for so long before be was found. They said we will address those issues as they come. His kidneys have improved some, so that is encouraging. He will need additional surgeries in the next few months after we get through this, but we are focusing on today......just today. Some of you have asked about donating blood. I asked about that and they said it would be great. They said that anyone interested can go to any blood bank and donate in Samuel's name and that a portion of any blood donated is credited to his account. They said for me to google how it works. I will do that and let those interested know more details. Thank you so much for all the prayers, verses and touching messages and texts. I am sorry that I am unable to respond to each of them. They are truly appreciated though.

Friday - 12:30 am
Samuel remains stable. They took him for a second CT scan, but we don't have the results back yet. He is scheduled for the first available surgery time in the morning. The goal will be more exploratory than anything. Yesterday they worked until they had him stable and today they will go back in and determine what is living tissue and what is not and try to see if there is any additiona...l bleeding. There was extensive damage internally to areas of previous surgeries. We are limited on how much we can see him. In two hours, we will be able to see him again. As bad as the hypothermia was, it may have been what saved his life. The area where he went off the road when he fell asleep was impossible to see at night. Earlier, when he could say a few words, he said he saw the lights from cars driving by, but he could not move. It breaks my heart to think of him like that, but I am soooooooo thankful he is alive. We are going to take this one day at a time, one hour at a time if that's what it takes. He is in good hands and we have great friends and family praying for him.
 
Friday - 7:05 pm
Samuel came out of surgery around 5:00 pm. He is in critical condition, but is stable. He is in the Shock-Trauma ICU and we are only able to see him for brief periods of time. They are keeping him heavily sedated. During the night he will be going back for another CT scan of his head and neck. Due to the severe swelling and possibly unseen injuries, they were unable to close his abdome...n. They will take him back to surgery tomorrow to check further and close him up if things have improved. They are still concerned about his low blood pressure. His temperature has stabilized. They think he may have some broken bones in his arm, neck and ankle, but that is of little concern at this point. Tonight, they will just try to keep him asleep and resting. I want to thank everyone who has been there for our family through this. Thank you for all your prayers and support. So many of you have been there for us through thick and thin, and we truly cherish your friendship. We will post an update when we know more.
 
Friday - 4:00 pm
He is in critical condition and has been in surgery for four hours now, but we were told they are finishing up. He will need additional surgery later, but right now the goal is to stop the internal bleeding. His blood pressure is very low even after several units of blood and he is having kidney failure. Managing those problems will be the second priority. When he comes out of surgery, he will be in STICU (Shock -Trauma ICU). Please keep praying.
 
Friday - 2:30 pm
Samuel is still in surgery, but we have some news. His body temperature is now 96 degrees. They have found where they think the internal bleeding is coming from. Once they have that under control and he is more stable, he will need some additional surgery. The biggest concern now is that his blood pressure is still very low even after several blood transfusions. He is also having kidney failure and at this time they don't know if he is going to go into full kidney failure or if it is something that may improve in time and as they get control of the bleeding. From where we started this morning, I feel like this is all good news. We serve a mighty God and He is still in control.
 
Friday Noon -
We are still in route to Hermann Hospital. Life flight called and Samuel did not handle the flight very well and they had to do some additional procedures on the way. He went immediately into surgery. More blood transfusions. He is in very critical condition. They are trying to find out what is going on. He has the head of the shock/trauma team working on him and is in good hands. Please keep him in your prayers!!!!! This is sooo hard.
 
Friday  Morning -
This is an update as to what is happening. I cannot accept all the phone calls, but I greatly appreciate your prayers for Samuel. At about 10:15 pm Samuel fell asleep while heading to the ranch after trimming a cow's hooves for a friend. No one knew he had been in an accident until 6:20 this morning when the young man who found him called my cell phone. It looks like his truck flipped at least twi...ce down a steep ditch. It was only one mile from our house. I arrived at the scene before the ambulance. He was incoherent, awake, but unable to speak. There was a lot of blood everywhere which could not be explained. He has hypothermia from laying in the ditch all night. They did a CT scan at the hospital and he has contusions to his heart, severely bruised lungs, internal bleeding, and they don't know the extent of damage done to his liver and kidneys. He is in critical condition. His body temperature is 84 degrees at this point. He is now in route by life flight to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. They are giving him a blood transfusion in flight. They cannot give him any pain medication until his blood pressure is up. He needs your prayers. We are in route to meet the surgeons at Hermann. I will send another update when I can. Thanks for praying.

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