"What you see is what you'll get"

Late last night I got a phone call to update me on my nephew's situation.

The neurologist sat down both parents today, and informed them that he believes TheBoy  has recovered as much as he will. Ever. His words to the family were "What you see now, is what you'll get."

He cannot come off the ventilator.

While he is breathing on his own, the part of his brain that controls how deep you breathe, among other things, is not responding at all. The part that tells you things like "breathe deeper", "you have too much spit in your mouth, you need to swallow", and "it's time to pee now" - that part.

So while technically he is not on life support... he will die without a ventilator to regulate his breathing.

His dad and birth mom are in agreement that TheBoy would not want to live like that. They plan to disengage the ventilator in the near future.

My sister & their youngest daughter are flying in from Iowa. As long as TheBoy was improving, they were staying in hopes that the girl could finish out the school year (I think she has 6 more days), but with this new news, they are coming in.

We don't have a date yet. They haven't decided on one. But nothing will be done before the rest of the family gets here.

They also want to give it "some time" to see if we get our miracle. But they don't want him to suffer needlessly for long.

They are putting in a tracheotomy, as well as moving the feeding tube out of his mouth & directly into his stomach, both in efforts to make him more comfortable.

The best of modern medicine says there is no hope.