Sorry for the lack of updates these past couple of days. I’m a little burnt out on blogging. I’m sure you can’t imagine why.

Well, Emily is still improving daily, it seems. The doctors are happy with her progress. And though she tires easily, she is awake more now.

Here’s the latest email from Dan…

Emily just got done with Occupational Therapy and is exhausted. She is able to bend and raise her left knee about 3″ off the bed. She can also move her foot out from the hip and has a small amount of movement pulling her toes back and up toward herself. PRAISE GOD!

The PT’s are worried about her left shoulder. It’s still a little too weak and they’re worried that it will dislocate or separate from the weight of her arm.

Emily was a little frustrated during the therapy. The nurse helping her wouldn’t drop the fact that she was here yesterday and Emily couldn’t remember. Emily was getting frustrated that she couldn’t remember her but I think eventually got too tired to remember.

She really did great and I hope she can be encouraged by the progress. Many things are still fuzzy for her so I’m not sure she really remembers the PT session yesterday.

Continued progress is our current prayer. I was getting anxious that the movement wasn’t coming back sooner, but realize worrying about it wasn’t what helped either. Thank you all for your support and prayers!

On a side note, my sweet husband took his guitar to Em’s room today and played/sang some soft tunes for her. She liked it. Music is good for healing, right?

And she was able to sit up (in a chair) for over and hour tonight while watching the Biggest Loser finale! Yay, Em!

As always, thank you for your continued prayers!

http://twitpic.com/smlkt – Check out the spike in site traffic on Emily’s day of surgery. Wow. Thanks all (we assume this meant more prayer)!

Emily got her breathing tube removed this morning and looks much more comfortable. She also got a nourishment tube put in through her nose, and the docs are hoping nourishment will help her heal more quickly.

She’s able to open her eyes and say “hi” very quietly, but is having trouble moving her left hand / arm on command.

She is making great progress!

This is a (slightly mangled to be up to date) email from Dan.

The surgeon came in to check on Emily. Just before he did I noticed Emily had a kung fu death grip on her breathing tube. It took a couple minutes but I did get her arm and hand back down to her waist. She’s now in restraints. But I guess it’s a good thing that she’s waking up and getting some awareness and motor function back.

The blood pressure from last night was under control almost immediately. The new task at hand is that she has a temperature. All night her temp was from 101.6-102.2 degrees F. It’s now at 100.58 and has been slowly coming down since 4am. She’s wrapped up in a cooling blanket and her hands and feet are FREEZING but the nurses say it’s okay. All of the heat is in her chest and head. Which isn’t great. The increased temperature in her head will make her blood vessels and brain swell. The surgeon wants to keep her temp no higher than 101.5 so it still needs to come down slightly.

She had another CT scan this morning and it showed no bleeds, no increase in swelling and everything was still good. So he’s happy with that.

He’s ordering a test this morning called an EEG. The results from that test showed no sign of seizures during the night.

He wants her to be in a state of discomfort to help pull her out of the coma, which is hard for us to watch.

All great progress updates, but many things to keep in prayer.

From Dan (9:45pm)…

Emily’s room has become a “low stimulation environment.” Among other things, it means low lights and no talking or touching. The nurse thinks it may be contributing to high blood pressure and a higher pulse.

The doctor is going to try and wake her up in the morning to see how the progress has been going. With the meds and machines she’s hooked up to they can’t tell much about what’s really going on. But when they wake her up the goal will be to only keep her partially sedated so she can still complete some neuro exams. I guess that means she’ll be coming out of the coma but I don’t know exactly. Seems like the plan has changed a couple times.

We were able to visit tonight, and we were encouraged that the doctor seems quite happy with the way things are going. Please pray that she does well tomorrow morning as they begin to wake her up. Thanks!