The Plan

We hope that you all are doing well and enjoyed the weekend!

Payton had the pleasure of having her grandparents visit this weekend, as well as an aunt and a great aunt and uncle. There's not too much news from the weekend. Payton is doing well right now. She is still having fluid build up in her lungs, but the nurses do a great job of staying on top of it. She rutinely gets her back patted to loosen up the secretions and then gets a suction tube put down her nose to suck them out. I'm sure Payton loves every second of it!

The plan for tomorrow is to do a swallow test on her to see how her vocal cords are working. She is still not making much for sound. Her cry is basically silent. The vocal cords cover the trachea when we eat or drink, so they need to make sure that hers are able to do this before she can be fed orally. Right now she is receiveing only IV nutrition. She has had an feeding tube of breastmilk throught her nose at times, but not currently for various reasons. If this test goes well she will be able to start to try to breastfeed. If not, they will have to determine what to do next with her paralized vocal cord. Obviously, we are praying that her vocal cord will heal up and work properly.

Tuesday will also be a big day. She will be going back down to the operating room to have her neck looked at again by the plastics doctors. They will decided whether it has healed up enough to try to stretch the skin around it, bring it together, and stich it up. The other option, if the wound hasn't healed much, is to redress the wound with another wound vac and wait a few more days. We are praying that the Lord would heal her up well, and that the wound would not need a skin graft or leave a scar. While she is in the OR and under anesthesia they will probably try to remove the two small skin tags that are in front of her right ear.

That's the plan for the next couple of days. Thank you for continuing to pray and ask the Father for the life and health of Payton. We love you all and can't wait to see you!

UWEC students: We're disappointed that we missed the end of your year. We're even more disappointed that we didn't get to bring Payton home to see you all. We trust that you all finished well. For those of you leaving soon to go on Project or TREK, have a great summer. You will have the time of your lives. And, for those of you who will be around Eau Claire this summer, we hope to see you soon, but we will see you all again in the fall. We're really looking forward to trusting God along side of you to give every student an opportunity to hear the Gospel and to know our precious Jesus. How good it is to be his! Have a great summer! Hope it doesn't go by too fast. It always does for me. We love you!