Update #8 on Peter

Peter and his family are so appreciative of your love and concern. The stat tracking for this blog kicked in last night and you won't believe the number of hits and the locations people are reading from. I'll share that in another update, though.

Many of your comments either here on the blog or on Facebook also address me or other of Peter's teammates. Often, your comments are to all of us. On behalf of the mission team here and Peter's mission organization, Team Expansion, we thank you for your concern and prayers and encouragement. We are all fortunate to work with such a stellar group of people with a broad array of spiritual gifts, aptitudes, abilities, and talents. The missionaries are here to help local believers plant churches and in over 15 years of purposeful church planting in Taipei, there are now many Taiwanese who are coming to visit us, meet Peter's parents, bring food, help with translation, etc. The list really goes on forever and there are more people who are willing to help than we have jobs for at this time. Some of these people know Peter, some just know of the loving community he is a part of and want to be close. Although the first 3 days were an adrenaline fueled sprint, we are now transitioning to a long term view and able to rest more and get back to some of our regular work as I personally was able to do this morning. Peter and his family remain our first priority.

I do have some updates about Peter's condition today.

I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but on Wednesday night, Dr. Peter said he believed he saw a small epidural hematoma (on the CT scan) of the same type the emergency surgery addressed on Tuesday night. It was too small to be a big concern but was worth keeping an eye on. Turns out Dr. Peter was right and it technically is a hematoma because it is blood on Peter's brain. But, we have since found out that it is from a small sponge left inside Peter's skull for the purpose of absorbing small amounts of blood. It is doing its job and will dissolve over time. The sponge looks just like blood without a sponge on the CT scan.

For now, any further CT scans will only be ordered if there is a good reason based on Peter's vitals or behavior. It is better for Peter to be in one place than to be moved to get scans done. If there is some reason (vitals changing, brain pressure rising, etc), they will not hesitate to order scans.

The nurses will start (or perhaps have already begun) giving Peter liquids today. I'm going to try to find out more about how this works and the significance when I visit the hospital later. It could be as simple as putting water in his mouth... but I'm curious as to how it actually works.

The doctor and/or nurses have allowed Claudia and Rick to bring in some music to play near Peter.

Peter has so many friends and is part of so many communities here. In fact, he has so many visitors that we have decided (along with doctor's orders) that we will limit the visiting hours to his mom and dad--with others going in only as we evaluate the situation from visit to visit. This is to limit the chance of infection, and because if Peter is overstimulated, he needs to be sedated and then his parents can't have their time with him.

Thanks again for praying. As well as for Peter, please continue to pray for his mom and dad here and his family back in the States. You can pray, too, for Mr. Lin, who was driving the car that hit Peter. We told him that Peter loves Jesus and that he will someday want to tell him how much Jesus loves him, too. Mr. Lin has been very concerned and has come by to see Peter each day.

I am happy to serve Peter, his family, and our Lord Jesus by posting these updates, but I want to mention that I don't consider this "my" blog. I am merely compiling all the reports (from doctors, nurses, other visitors, teammates, internet research, etc) and putting them here. The previous 2 paragraphs are a direct cut/paste from Craig Thompson's latest email about Peter. Peter is standing alone on the front line of this battle, but all of us who care about him equally share the responsibility and privilege of encouraging him as he bravely fights.