As much as I’d love to post that today has been a whopping success with major forward progress, that’s not really the case. If I’m looking on the bright side, there was no backward progress, so I guess we’ll call it a good day.

Corey continues to be in a medically induced coma, although they’ve changed the drugs they’re giving him so it’s a “lighter” coma. He’s developed a fever over the past 24 hours but he’s already on strong antibiotics so they’re giving him Tylenol and trying to cool his body down internally. He’s still sedated fully and breathing on the machine at 100% but he’s not being medically paralyzed and is taking a few breaths on his own.

They’re beginning to work on an extubation plan so they told me this morning that today was going to be a transitional day. They played a lot with his oxygen levels and pressure today in the hopes that tomorrow they can wake him up some and start trying to get him breathing on his own. This will be a slow and gradual process, but they think he’s at the point where they can begin taking steps in that direction. He still has gobs (a highly advanced medical term) of fluid in his lungs and they’re still not making headway on the actual infection, but they’re wanting to get him off the ventilator by the end of the week, so they’re going to start heading that way.

The infectious diseases doctor came by this morning and they still don’t have answers to what this is. He most definitely has a very severe form of pneumonia, but it appears that all the viral and bacterial tests have come back negative, meaning if there is a secondary lung infection, it’s a fungal one, which only happens in immunosuppressed patients. The test results and cultures for what they’re still testing for take a good while to come back, he said, and I’m really trying to wait well in this area. The possibility also still remains that it’s some form of toxicity to the chemo. They’re exploring both options and are waiting for tests results to come back so they can move from broad-spectrum antibiotics to more targeted ones. We really need to make some progress on this infection. That’s been my major area of prayer today.

I asked this morning if we were out of the woods, as far as the critical stage of whatever it is we’re dealing with, and he said, “no” without hesitation. But he followed that up with saying that Corey looked “pretty darn good” from where he was yesterday, so I’ll take it.

I’ve spent a lot of time these past few days being still. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God” and in this stillness (forced as it may be) I’ve been experiencing the past few days, I have never been more sure of what I know about God, my Father. I know that He is the God who Sees, both Corey and me (El Roi), I know that He is our Healer (Jehovah-Rapha), I know that He is the Almighty (El Shaddai), I know that He is my Provider (Jehovah-Jireh) and I know without a doubt that He is the God of Peace (Shalom). I would never wish what we’re walking through right now on anyone, but oh that each of you would find yourselves in a place to know Him the way I have come to know Him. The end of the book of Job (ummm, talk about putting suffering into perspective!) says, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:5). When you move from knowing (about) God with your mind to knowing (really knowing) Him with your heart, that’s the most beautiful gift of life there is.

And boy, what a gift I’ve come to realize life is.