FROM MR. B

Sunday, April 20, Information from Melissa's Uncle Steve on events of Sunday:

Around 3:30 a.m. Sunday, Melissa suffered abnormal bleeding at the tracheotomy site. Around 10:00 a.m., doctors performed a surgical procedure to determine the cause of the bleeding. They could not determine the cause, so they injected Nova 7 to stop the bleeding. This is her second shot of Nova 7. The first one was on March 21 when Melissa first went into the hospital with the first aneurism. Around 5:40 p.m., while the nurse was sucking the phlegm out of her mouth, Melissa appeared to have her eyes fixated towards the ceiling (slightly between the ceiling and the wall). She is now laying on her back with a slight tilt of the head. What she was staring at was a reflection of herself. Melissa saw herself for the first time and started to cry. Sheue-Ling was able to distract her and was actually able to make her smile … 3 times as a matter of fact. This was very positive at least to see her muscle strength improve. Around 6:00 p.m. Michael’s brother visited. Melissa was able to extend her left hand as to shake hands. Around 8:30 p.m., Melissa indicated she was in severe pain and grabbed onto Marlene and Michael's hands. One on either side of her. Her right hand appears to have some strength as well as her right leg. As of now the cause of the pain isn’t known, but her heart rate, 150-160 does indicate she is suffering.

Prayer Items:

1. Initial 3 days after tracheotomy will be very uncomfortable and irritating. Pray for smooth adjustments and removal of irritations.

2. Cough to normalize.

Melissa is by no means out of the woods. What's encouraging is that Melissa is able to respond to certain commands and appears to be alert. These are all good signs, but they are not consistent.

Let's continue to pray for substantive recovery benchmarks. Most important of all, remember that God is in control.