Sunday July 10th, 2005

Sunday July 9th. Zack looks better this morning. The swelling on the right side of his face has gone down a lot but now the left side has started to swell. His left eye is swollen shut now. He has a tendency to turn his head to that side and the fluid is settling there. His neck is also starting to swell. I don’t have a good side to focus on now like before but it still looks like Zack. His ICP is 16 and at times stays at 11 and 12. He is moving around a lot more. When they access him his hands quickly moves to where they pinch him. The nurse told me he opened his right eye half way to look at who was hurting him. When they stick his toe with a pin he moves his legs. Then when Dr Densler came to check on him and pinched him hard he opened his eye more than half way. It sounds cruel but whatever they have to do to get a reaction is necessary. They are pleased with his progress. He appears to be closer to consciousness even though he is still in a light coma. At 2:00 PM they take him off the sedative. Now he could wake up at any time. We had a lot of visitors today. Many people from church, parents of the kids who are here every day. Dave Stone came by with the youth ministers from Southeast Christian. They prayed with us and we read the letter that Zack had written me about a month earlier. He was presenting his case on why his curfew should be later than 11:00 PM. It is well written and his points are clearly made. It gives those that don’t know Zack well a glimpse at his personality. Of course an 11:00 PM curfew doesn’t mean anything if you are going to sneak back out at 1:00 AM. Even in the midst of the pain we are going through we see God bringing good from it. Several strangers approach us and say they were in the waiting room Friday when Dale Mowery gathered us together to pray. They saw the huge circle of teenagers, friends and family bow their heads and tearfully lift Zack up. There must have been 100 of us silently witnessing to other hurting people who don’t know Zack. Parents call me and say that they are hearing their teenagers talking about the power of prayer. The entries that they are writing in the notebook that we started for Zack talk about how they don’t pray enough but they are now. So there are blessings in the midst of our pain and we didn’t have to wait long to see them.
Praise the Lord!