Tag: experience (Page 3 of 9)

As always Samuel glows

I previously talked about the degree of difficulty we are facing with Samuel, about being in Limbo, about things being slow and steady and about dealing with ambiquity.

Several times along Samuel’s journey things have happened with a sense of urgency, but then……..

Things don’t go as expected…

Right at the start the sense of urgency was about being ready for Samuel to die in intensive care, then when the respirator was disconnected things did not go as expected and he did all the work on his own, setting off what has been a seven-year long journey of discovery.

Then as things progressed a number of problems emerged and lots of discussion occurred around what was to be expected… and things never went as expected. Samuel always decided to things better or worse than expected. If there was a rule book, Samuel was prepared to break the rules and work outside all expectations.

Samuel’s lungs deteriorated, due to the Scoliosis and repeated pneumonia’s and there was a lot of discussion about his capacity to get through the corrective surgery to rod and fuse his spine. There was a very clear expectation that Samuel might not make it through the surgery and/or post surgical period … but he did.

We have had significant periods of deterioration in Samuel’s health and sincerely expected that he would not see his seventh birthday… then his eighth and then his ninth…. but again Samuel has not done what has been expected.

Recent expectations

Samuel clearly deteriorated over the past months with repeated hospitalisation for pneumonia, changes to the bugs, not responding to treatment. I posted about looking for the fire in his eyes, and waiting for the spark.

Samuel was moved to Bear Cottage with an expectation that things would progress rather quickly….

What has happened?

A lot.. but not a lot is the fair summary. As mentioned in earlier posts there are little signs of progress with Samuel. He is looking extremely pale on and off, he is working hard with his breathing on and off, his secretions are getting thicker, he is clearly in more pain more often, he is having increased seizure activity here and there and he is gagging and needing suctioning more often.

We have ceased Samuel’s pressure support, with an expectation that things would move quicker.. but you guessed it, Samuel decided that without pressure support he would keep up the oxygen levels in his blood overnight just fine thank you very much! (They are not as high as they should be all the time, but they are certainly better than what they were in hospital when he was on continuous pressure support.)

It is clear that things are progressing with Samuel but just nowhere near as fast as anyone expected.

Should we expect anything?

After seven years of experience with Samuel (and six weeks here at Bear Cottage) I guess the one thing to expect is that Samuel will not do as expected, never has and probably never will!

It sounds like another cliché, but the only thing we can expect is to expect the unexpected!

We will simply get on with continuing to deal with the fundamental ambiguity of being human, and watching Samuel decide what will happen and when.

Thanks to everyone who is keeping up to date with Samuel’s progress and asking about what is happening. We appreciate all of your care and support.