David

My brother, David is pretty sick. Please pray for comfort, peace and for my mom and me as we care for him.

A long story made somewhat short...
David is 23. He is severally handicapped, since a heart surgery when he was 8 months old, he only weighed 8 pounds! He was born with a heart defect and after surgery he went into cardiac arrest from bleeding out into his chest. The nurses and doctors didn't realize anything was wrong for several hours. He went back into surgery and they couldn't the source, they just treated it and the bleeding stopped on its own. David suffered brain damage from the loss of oxygen to his brain during this long period.

So since then he has been completely dependent for all care. He functions on the same level as a 2 month old baby. He can't talk, he is in a wheelchair, he has a feeding tube, and wears diapers. He can't communicate except through smiling and crying, neither of which he does on a consistent basis. He cannot respond to us. He also has chronic lung disease and asthma. He is on 11 medications.

We think he just has a respiratory virus that is causing all kinds of a mess. He is running a fever about 8-9 degrees higher than his normal temperature (usually he is about 95 and today he was 104.3) and is on as much oxygen as we can give him at home. He spent most of the early morning (3am on) crying and acting very uncomfortable. He finally settled down late this afternoon and seems to be feeling a little bit better.

This morning was pretty scary. We have a home health nurse who comes to help with his care. This morning she came and woke me out of a dead sleep at about 8:10 am. My mom was at work 40 miles from home. The nurse, Mary, said that David was in respiratory distress and I needed to get in there and see what was going on. He was breathing very fast and shallow and was running that high fever. His heart rate was about 180 which is dangerous for someone with a heart defect. It took both of us 2 hours or so to get all the meds finished, get him positioned into a more comfortable spot, and to keep swapping cool wash clothes for ones that had been heated my his hot body. He is to big to hold but I got in bed with him for about an hour, and cuddled with him he loves that, but today I think it was making him hotter. Its always scary when he gets this way because he can go downhill so fast. We have decided as a family (all of us, grandmas, aunts, uncles, siblings, parents, and stepmom) that we will only provide supportive care for David, this means he is a DNR. His life has been spent in so much misery that we, as a family, feel that when God is ready for him, that we will not stop that. Again, scary in some ways but I know it is the best thing for David.