As promised yesterday, here is a photo of my evergreen clemetis in bloom. It is so fragrant and long lasting, and since it is evergreen, a joy all year round.
Now updates on both Philip and John. First of all John's surgery went well. It lasted some 3 1/2 hours and they accomplished much. Praise God, John has no nerve or muscle damage to his left arm. The doctors had anticipated both. He has lost the external left ear, just plain gone. They cleaned off all the dead skin from his left arm and left side of his face and transplanted new skin. It will take about four days before they know if the grafts took. If not, they will try again. Other, less critical burn areas will be dealt with later. He is still on a resperator, but in general doing better. Praise God!!
Amy received some results from Philip's tests. The tumor is static at this point. So they are going to just watch it for a few months. If it starts to grow again they will remove it. The tests also showed that Philip is low in cortisol, a salivary stress hormone. This may be the reason for his aggressiveness. Low cortisol is treatable by using the same drug that is prescribed for HDAD. HDAD is what Amy & Juergen had originally had Philip tested for. That test came back negetive, but sometimes you have to go around in a circle to get back to the same place. OK, we can deal with that while we wait for the other more serious surgery. The Lord does have a suttle sense of humor.
actually that’s not correct. First it's ADHD. 2nd, Ritalin elevating cortisol levels but it's not the treatment for Cortisol being low. We are looking at a thing called Addison’s Disease. This is a problem caused by 3 different things...but the result is low Cortisol. The treatment is Cortisol replacement therapy. A person could actually die from shock with Addison’s disease and it generally needs to be treated for life. We also want to check Thomas because he is treated for ADHD with Ritalin. The Ritalin could be masking a possible Addison’s problem. Untreated Addison’s can kill a person.
ReplyDelete- glad to hear about Uncle John.
Glad to hear about uncle John, we will continue to pray for Philip and John. I'm glad your learning more about Philip so you know what to do.
ReplyDeleteLove, Shelley