Update #3 on Peter

Thank you for praying for Peter. Thank you for your comments on the blog and on Facebook and via email letting us know that you are praying and that you find the updates helpful.

We are rapidly learning more than we ever wanted to learn about head trauma. We are learning most of the terms and protocols in English and Chinese at the same time since most of us have not dealt with a situation like Peter’s before. We will keep passing on to you as much of what we are learning as possible in order to help you pray for Peter.

In this update, I want to share about the Glasgow Coma Scale. This was a scale that I did not know about before yesterday afternoon. It has become important to us as one way to objectively evaluate Peter’s status and I’ll share with you how it works and where Peter is on the scale.

The scale runs from a low of 3 to a high of 15. It is comprised of 3 different categories with a score for each category and the sum of the 3 categories make up the score on the coma scale. The lower the score, the deeper the coma. The 3 categories are:

• Eyes – this category score can range from 1 to 4
• Verbal – this category score can range from 1 to 5
• Motor – this category score can range from 1 to 6

Yesterday afternoon, we were told that Peter was at a 7. The category scores were as follows.

• Eyes = 1 because Peter did not open his eyes
• Verbal = 1 because Peter was not making any sounds
• Motor = 5 because Peter showed purposeful movement to painful stimulus

In the previous update, I mentioned that Dr. Zeng told us that Peter had opened his eyes. He did not give us more information about this action at the time. He only said that he would lessen the sedative in hopes that Peter might respond to us during visiting time from 11:00AM to 11:30AM. At least 12 people went into the ICU to see Peter in shifts of 2 at a time. Those in first saw no response, but by the end of the visitation period, Peter was moving his legs and his eyes were partially open. He is still heavily sedated so keep that in mind, too. We were all a little disappointed that Peter’s eyes didn’t pop open when we starting sharing all of your names and comments you are leaving for him.

But just after visiting time was over, Dr. Zeng came with some very good news.

He told us more about Peter’s eyes opening that morning. He said that they asked him to open his eyes and he did. He was definitely responding to stimulus. Perhaps this seems like a small thing, but in fact, it is significant enough to vault Peter from 7 to 9 on the Glasgow Coma Scale! We celebrate this change!

We also celebrate that Peter’s brain pressure has remained at around 10 mmHg for over 14 hours now.

These 2 objective measurements are important to note and encourage us greatly. And yet, Peter’s condition is still very serious. We must rejoice when and where we can, but the big picture is still very cloudy at this time.

The latest info from Doctor Zeng is that they will take him off the sedatives at 7:30AM on September 24 and see if he wakes up on his own and how he responds.

We have a small group to go meet Peter’s mom at the airport tonight. I plan to see if we can go in and meet her at the plane and help her through immigration, baggage claim, and customs. It is an unusual request, but please pray we will be able to do this for her.

Most of the readers here are not in Taiwan. To keep it simple, I’m putting all the times as local times here in Taipei. I’ve added some clocks to the sidebar to help you convert if needed.