Prayer Request

I sent out an email this morning but wanted to post this to any of my blog followers!

Hey everyone,
I wanted to send an email to update everyone on Tommy and ask for your continued prayers. I will start from the beginning for anyone that isn't up to speed...
He has been in the hospital since 3/14/09 at McLeod. He came in w/ staph infection and breathing difficulties. The staph cleared up well but the breathing continued to be a problem. They determined he had thrush in his lungs as well as a strain of the herpes virus. He began having bowel problems earlier this week and on Wed they determined he had a bowel obstruction and were planning to try a procedure and then if it didn't work they would have to do surgery. Now to yesterday...he went into respiratory failure yesterday morning. It took them a VERY long time to intubate him b/c he is so swollen from all the meds. He was finally intubated and transferred to ICU and was taken to surgery nearly immediately for the bowel obstruction. His belly was severely swollen and hard. The docs felt it was the first priority b/c it was making his breathing even worse. He did well with the surgery, has a colostomy bag. The bag is temporary and will hopefully be reversed once he comes through this. He is sedated and the doc just said he was looking okay. They have told us he will be very hard to wean off the ventilator due to his compromised lung status (emphysema). He looks better today. his color is much better and the swelling in his belly is SO MUCH better. They did turn the O2 down a little this morning and are waiting for his bowel sounds to fully start and will then begin to give him nutrition through the J-tube (instead of the TPN he is getting via IV right now). The turning down of the O2 is not really an attempt to wean-he is not ready for that yet.
We convinced mom to go to the guest house across the street last night. I left her around midnight and was just praying she would sleep. She was up all night the night before. It is currently almost 10 am and she is still over there so I am SO thankful that she got some rest. She has not been home since this ordeal started almost 2 weeks ago. Jason and Tommy (Tommy's son's) came in late last night and will be here this weekend.

Many are asking what they can do...please just PRAY for him to be able to wean off the vent and to not have any further complications. We are trying so hard to give this to God but it is so hard not to constantly take it back from him!!! Please share his name w/ any of your prayer lists. I don't have email addresses for a lot of mom's friends so if you do, please forward.
Thanks so much,
Lee