Friday, March 4th, 2005

Last night Sam's left pupil became fixed and dilated after being on his stomach.  He had a CAT scan of his head and everything looked okay.  We are going to bed knowing that Sam's vital signs are the best they have been in days.

--Katie Jessop's Journal Entry

Saturday, March 5th, 2005

Today Sam's pupils both went large and became non-reactive after they tried to wean him off the blood pressure medication.  He got a tube put back in his head to measure the pressure.  Dr. Al feels like the high and lows of Sam's unstable condition are starting to settle down.  Friday night Sam's blood pressure dropped very low.  Dr. Al told Maur to get her family up to the room because he thought Sam was going to leave us.  Maur, Jim, Heather and Becca were all up there yelling at him to get his blood pressure up and it worked!

--Katie Jessop's journal entry

**This was a horrible day in a string of horrible days.  I remember Dr. Al standing by my parent's room on the 6th floor telling my mom about Sam's pupils.  (I was trying to pretend that I wasn't listening, so  instead I was acting very interested in the bathroom door.) I also remember Sam's wonderful nurse, Daisy, crying about how his pupils were fixed.  Everyone was thinking he was brain dead--when they took him down to do the CAT scan I was almost fainting while waiting for the results.  At one point I went to the hospital chapel and just lay face down on the floor and talked to the crucifix.  And we were yelling at Sam to get his blood pressure up--we must of stressed him out so badly that it couldn't help but rise (we were pretty loud and mean--anything to keep our boy with us). At this point it had been almost three weeks since the accident. 

--Bec