very candid update

Troy was able to talk to each specialist today. The recap:

Lungs:
Still holding and/or improving. 50% concentration and full levels in the blood. They took an additional xray...the nurse thought it looked similar to the last (certainly no worse), but a doctor hadn't looked yet.

Heart:
Still improving. The tried to get the blood pressure to hold without the Dopamine, and it did for a little while, but dropped a bit, so they put her back on the IV. no concern there. Blood pressure holding nicely at roughly 100/60, and heart-rate had decreased from 120 last night to 95-100ish. One semantic note is that they told Troy this was not a heart attack (damage to the heart), but rather a cardiac arrest (stoppage). One other thing they mentioned is that there is some concern about a valve in her heart that isn't functioning quite correctly. It's not an immediate concern, but assuming the rest of Hyatt's functions improve, they've do a different type of analysis that can look at the heart more closely (by way of the esophagus, troy thought). This would come well after getting everything stable though.

Brain:
This is the tough one. Troy talked extensively with the neurologist right before I got to Hyatt's room today. She is NOT brain dead, but there is a lot of doubt remaining on what functionality she has or doesn't have; any brain damage is tough to discern at this point. She responded slightly to pain on one side of her body, and not at all on the other side. It's still too early to make a real prognosis, but Troy pressed the doctor, since we had all been so excited about the "wake-ups" from yesterday. She admitted those could have been merely reflexive responses. That was really hard for Troy to hear and hard for us all to digest. She said if this was an older patient, she would have significant concern right now; since Hyatt is young she has a longer window, and we just don't know. So for right now, the word is that we're waiting for Hyatt to tell everyone what the diagnosis is. Her prospects of recovery all hinge on her mind healing enough to re-start, so to speak. They did an EEG to see how her brainwaves currently respond to different stimuli (her spoken name, a pinch, etc.) and to check for sign of seizure activity (they don't expect this). We won't know the results of this for a while; just the tech was there for that.

While we're in the middle of this, I think it's natural that we're all too upbeat on positive signs and too downbeat on concerning news....but that's just the way it is. So, the mood isn't too great right now, to be very honest.

Troy is trying to concentrate on just the immediate problem of getting Hyatt back to consciousness, and i think that's right. However, one thing is very obvious to me: there are a lot of different ways this could turn out for Hyatt, and no matter how good or how bad the result is, their family is going to need a LOT of help for somewhere between a long time and a very very long time. This is exactly what family and close friends are for, and a lot of us need to think hard about what we can do to help this special family.

Sidney is happily coloring in front of me as I type this, and I just can't take it.

* * * * * <----- those are my tears