For me to live is Christ and to die is gain
Happy Birthday, my Beloved!!!
Hi everyone, and thank you for all your incredible support, prayers and kindness during this tough time. This is Steve, as I managed to steal Jessica's password, before she had a chance to post today. I need to first thank Jessica for her very accurate technical updates as well as reflecting the emotions and interactions of friends and family. She has reflected my heart, often better that I think I could have myself.
Let me start, by noting that I continue to become more aware at how God has gifted me so incredibly with 28 years with Billie. 28 more would not nearly be enough, but I feel as if I have been blessed with an amount of joy in my relationship with her that many may not see in multiple lifetimes. All this makes it the more painful to contemplate that it may not continue until we meet again on the other side. As I see many of your responses, I see I am not the only one affected this way by this incredibly fun and relational lady. Over the last week, in the middle of procedures, beeping instruments and being awakened every 30 minutes through the night for hospital stuff, she remains an encouragement to her friends and family and has been sharing with hospital staff. She even wanted her stamping equipment brought to the hospital to make thankyou cards.

Today was a busy day, being taken early in the morning to evaluate the right sided high blood pressure in her heart. The plan was to put a monitor into the heart and then go to the ICU where this could be monitored while a new medication was tried to lower this pressure and possibly improve her oxygen levels. As it turns out, her heart function was much better than expected and the right side of the heart's readings were actually normal. This is a double edged sword in that the heart is proven strong, but we were hoping to add a medication that could help her oxygenation. She is now back in her regular room and feeling even a little better today. After 4-5 days of worsening oxygen levels to the point of needing 90% oxygen(getting very close to being put on a ventilator and Dr Raghu giving her only a few days to live ), the levels have slowly steadily improved the last 3-4 days. She now is needing 55-60% oxygen and will need to get down to 30-35% to be able to go home. She is beginning to taper her steroids today and has completed her antibiotics today. If things continue to improve, she may be able to go to a rehabilition center in a few days, getting the higher doses of oxygen that they can provide. The one last question that we need to consider is whether the hole in her heart needs to be repaired to help the oxygen. If all this is a bit confusing, take heart that it is also confusing the 4 teams of doctors that have been doing an outstanding job of working with Billie. We would appreciate your prayers about the following:

1 That the improvement in oxygen will continue and not backtrack with the tapering of the steroids
2 That the doctors would have wisdom in knowing how to treat the leaking in the heart.
3 That a lung transplant may become available before any further decline
4 That whatever happens, and in the midst of our lack of understanding, that we understand that God is in control, and that we would be flexible to be used for his grand purposes.

Billie comments that her itinerary has cleared, and she would love to see visitors. I'd suggest that we try to keep visiting to 1-4 pm and visits of 15 minutes. Billie would love to talk longer, but does tire easily. (Your flowers and cards have been much appreciated, but right now cards are easier to take care of than flowers)
Thanks-
In His Grace,
Steve