Monday night is family (& friends) night

Spencer Holt taking time out to beat Luke at PS3

Luke's medical "Pit Crew"

The Williamsons

The Bigelows & Larsons

Alyssa & Brooke

Lloyd unpacking his world famous frozen yogurt

Brain Freeze


The Cardozas

Not everything in the hospital is tough
(play on the iPad while Mom feeds you dinner)

Once again, a sincere Brown family thank you to all the visitors. Luke appreciates it more than you'll know. We are trying to take pictures of everyone (for Luke & the blog), but sometimes we forget.
In the last 24 hours Luke has received stuffed animals, brownies, fruit, sandwiches, sunflower seeds, candy, frozen yogurt, games, books....too much to list. He's enjoying his PS3 being hooked up in the room (some visitors are enjoying it too) and Jared Cardoza even loaned him an iPad until he came home!!
Today brought more medical head scratching and a new surgeon who wants to keep trying different things to help him get home soon. No one can understand why it is taking so long for the lung to heal, but we all agree that we have to try the easier/simpler things first; since we know that another surgery is not recommended.
They've done several more x-rays in the last 24 hours to look at the lung and to get a more precise picture of where the main chest tube is located (in relationship to the collapsed portion of the lung). They are happy with its position and they decided that instead of going for a 3rd chest tube, they changed out his water seal devices and increased the suction pressure from 20 to 30. Bottom line is that even though most of the collapsed portions of the lung have re-inflated, there is still the top section which has never re-inflated after surgery. The air leak is aggressive and steady and we hope that if the increased suction can help to re-inflate the lung, then that will give the hole a chance to heal/seal up. We will see.
In spite of this bad situation, we are able to count our blessings and we always remember how much worse things could be.
We are all together.
We are able to stay the night with him.
We have family and friends that love and support us.
And ultimately, we have faith that Heavenly Father knows what Luke is going through. He knows what we are all going through. He would not give us this or any other challenge, except that it will make us stronger and prepare us for other things. We acknowledge His hand in all things and we know that everything happens for a reason.

Thank you for caring enough to follow Luke's progress and for the countless prayers that are said for him. We so appreciate it.

KAAL