Thursday February 19th

Hello to all. Thanks for all the prayers, visits, food,friends,notes,well wishes and support. Clay had a bit of a tough early morning today. They came in to give him a breathing treatment early this morning and when they hooked him back up to the ventilator the tube that had been inserted in the Olney hospital failed. He could not get all of his oxygen with part of it escaping from the tube. Inserting a new tube was a tricky procedure due to the swelling. The young lady that was his respiratory therapist stood holding the breathing tube together for well over one hour. The night physician was not comfortable replacing the tube and they were considering an emergency tracheotomy. They put in a call to the children's hospital that is attached to Parkland and they sent a team over that successfully placed the new breathing tube in Clay's throat. Clay also had the feeding tube that was in his mouth removed and a new one was placed in his stomach through his nose. All of this made for a long morning for Clay and it took a large portion of the day to get him stabilized. By the afternoon he was resting nicely and the doctors made the decision to proceed with the surgery scheduled for Friday morning the 20th. The first order of business will be the placement of the trachea tube that will be essential to most of his remaining surgeries. If he is stable after the trachea tube procedure they will attempt to graft his entire chest and stomach. Please remember Clay in your prayers, tomorrow is an important day for him.