I am starting to write what's happening with our daughter, Patty, here on Blogger, and hope that those who want to follow her progress can subscribe.  If you do, you'll get email notices of new posts, and it will save me remembering all the friends who I want to keep posted. 

Yesterday was an upswing for her, as her breathing had improved to the point that the doctors felt it was time to remove the tube that had been supplying her oxygen-rich air from a rather high-tech "ventilator" machine.  The amount of assistance from the machine had been gradually decreased over the preceding few days, and she was showing more signs of being capable of breathing on her own.  So, yesterday she began doing all the work of breathing again.  We could see it was not easy for her, though this same process had happened several weeks earlier, and the re-entry to breathing did seem somewhat easier this time.

But when we came to the hospital this morning to visit her, we learned that she'd become fatigued, because of a swollen trachea.  So the tube had been re-inserted into her mouth down into her trachea, and she is now getting assistance from the ventilator again. 

It was disappointing to see this.  But, she obviously was not ready yet for the transition off the machine.  She still has a lot of mucous secretion in her lungs, and that makes breathing all the more difficult. 

I was able to begin giving a Chinese herbal formula for pneumonia yesterday.  I have confidence in this as an adjunctive therapy to the antibiotic approach, and hope it can be continued.  With the herbs, perhaps the mucous, which has been so tenacious, can be cleared more, before taking her off the machine again. 

So..... here is praying for the best for our much loved little girl! 

May she, and all children, all grown people, all beings everywhere, be happy, peaceful, and free from suffering.