Presidential Hospital

In perusing the San Jose Tec website I learned that in 2004 the White House selected this hospital as the place to receive President Bush or any of his entourage in the event of a medical emergency.  Good endorsement. 

Probably Three Weeks in Monterrey

I spoke with a nice young man in the international office of the hospital today.  He said that of the 25 or so patients they have had in the ketamine coma study, only one person went home after only a week following the coma.  All the rest stayed in the hospital at least two full weeks after coming out of the coma, which means the whole trip is 3 weeks.  This trip is going to be long.  Please pray for our family.  I can't imagine being away from our children that long.  I will stay in a hotel as long is Melody is in the ICU.  Hopefully she will only be in the ICU a couple exta days after the coma.  Then we both stay together in a suite in the hospital.     

Gracious Church

Yesterday our Session voted to grant me the month of August as paid leave in addition to my vacation, should I desire to take it. This gracious act, initiated by the elders and not by me, is indicative of the love and care that we receive from our congregation.  It is also indicative of the relationship that I have with my fellow elders.  These brothers did not force me to take this leave.  Our elders know and appreciate that the difficulties that our family faces are not outside the will of God for our whole church.  They desire to give me the freedom to follow the Spirit's leading.  I will take this leave, but I suspect I will remain in frequent contact with the church.  How could I not?  The church is not my "job" but our spiritual family, our family's support, our friends.  To cut myself off from the church while in Mexico would not only seem odd but would indeed be foolish.  "Your wife is in a coma.  Now is the time to take a break from communion with the saints."  I don't think so; I have taught against that type of non-sense.  So, I'll be on leave, but I'll be in touch too.  I also look forward to renewing our friendship with Andres Garza, MTW's director of Northern Mexico.  Andres preached at our mission conference a couple of years ago and was a great encouragement to the church and to me personally.  Not surprisingly, he has reached out to us since learning that we are heading to Monterrey.

Childcare in August

Early on we considered bringing the children with us to Mexico.  However, the Cystic Fibrosis care team at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia strongly advised against taking Jacob out of the country for that long.  And, there were the other obvious considerations about having the four children out of the country while their mom is in the hospital.  Our plan now is for Melody's parents to stay with the children in August. Hopefully they will only have to be with them for a couple of weeks.  I am going to arrange some folks to provide breaks for them during the week so that they do not wear out over the two week period.  We are planning for the best case scenario, and will have some contingency plans in place for longer term scenarios.

The children will love being with their grandparents.  Mary Faith seemed relieved when we told her that we could skype one another.  She is also eager to receive her mother back from Mexico in better condition than she is now. 

Dr. Cantu

We spoke at length with Dr. Cantu last evening. He is a very kind and gracious person. Dr. Cantu said that for the week that Melody is in a coma I should stay in the hotel next to the hospital. When she comes out of the coma I will stay with her in the hospital. I was in Monterrey in 2005 and 2006 for missions trips. It is comforting to have a sense for where we will be. Monterrey is the financial capital of Latin America. Hospital San Jose Tec de Monterrey is highly respected. They have many patients from the US who go there for elective procedures. Here is their English language website: http://portal.hsj.com.mx/lwp/wcm/connect/HSJ/AREAS+GENERALES/ENGLISH/

Prayer Requests:

1) Please pray for good health. If Melody gets sick (cold, flu, etc.) she cannot go into the coma until she is well again. She will be intubated for one solid week, so her lungs need to be in good health.
2) Pray for Melody not to have hallucinations while in the coma. Monterrey has had very little trouble with hallucinations. I seem to recall Dr. Kirkpatrick saying that the dosing schedule for the medication in Monterrey helps curb this side effect.

Prayer Page

The information pages now contain a prayer page. I will move prayer requests to that page so that folks who are praying for us do not have to continually scroll through blog posts.

Beach Trip

Some friends invited us to stay with them
for a couple of days in Ocean City, NJ. Melody made the trip OK but could not be on the balcony or on the beach because the wind caused her pain. That was new. Thankfully they had a nice view and she could rest in the house while I took the kids to the beach.