Ben Update 3/25

Please feel free to sign the guestbook on Ben's website - your thoughts are very encouraging to my Aunt Becky, Uncle Tom and cousin Tara. A friend of Becky's got them a journal with Ben's name on it. Inside, Becky is writing the comments, texts and emails that everyone sends. Also, they have it for visitors to sign. So when Ben wakes up and recovers, he can read how much everyone loves him and supported him during this time!

Please pray that the brain stem is not very damaged and that it will heal.

Here are two updates from Tara:

Praise the Lord! From 1:30 a.m. to now, Ben has remained stabilized, keeping between a level 11 -14! The ICU nurse told Grandma Nichols 'we're crusin'' when she went in this morning at 5:30 am. Mom woke up at 1 am to check on Ben and the nurse had drained him four times. She had told Grandma and Mom that she was preparing to call the neurosurgeon if Ben's brain fluid levels stayed above 20 again for more than five minutes. It was had been bordering on this for quite some time. Mom prayed over Ben before she left, then again out in the stairway before coming back up to our room to try for more sleep. She thanked God for letting us have Ben for 19 years and prayed that he would have mercy on us and let us have him longer. We believe that God is going to use him as a living testimony of the miracles that God can do. Thank you all for your prayers, since we are told that these next hours are critical as we head into day three with our sweet Ben.

We just met with the neurosurgeon who updated us on Ben's status. Currently there are two fronts that Ben is working on. The first is trying to keep his intracranial pressure at levels that will not do further damage to his brain. The second is the healing of the brain stem. He told us that Ben will have a CAT scan tomorrow to check on the brain stem. While there is no change in Ben's neurological assessment today, that the first 1-2 weeks after the injury will tell a lot in terms of long term prognosis. The great news that he gave us is that he believes Ben is approaching the peak of brain swelling and that the swelling should start to subside by the end of this evening. He also told us that his belly is waking up and is making some gurgling noises, so they are going to continue attempts with feeding.