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4:30 AM
Mikie threw up again. They put the NG tube back in. The idea is to draw those digestive juices off before he vomits and aspirates on them in the process.
He had a mild seizure at 7:50 AM, has hiccups and acts like he might be a little nauseated. The suction is set on intermediate so that it doesn't appear to be doing any good, just drawing the bile into the tube and then when it cycles off it goes back into his stomach. The dayshift nurse, BJ, fixed it when she came in by moving the canister to the floor. Man it sucked out a lot of bile and fluid. Did you know your body produces about 1/2 to 3/4 of a liter of fluids per meal! (Reference: think of a 1 liter bottle of Coke. The website said 400-800 ml, but I visualize it better when I reference it to something I am familiar with.)
I reading about the digestive system at http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/G/GITract.html
Im discovering that a deficiency of vitamin K can lead to blood not clotting as it should. Factor 7 is something they said they gave him the other day and vitamin K contributes to it, whatever that means. I happened to notice the canned food that we have been using at home does not meet the RDA of Vitamin K with the ammount that Mikie gets daily.
Mikie is not eating enough spinach!
Its no wonder that Mikies having a tough time right now with his digestive tract. With the massive amounts of antibiotics he is taking it must have just wiped out even the good bugs in his tummy. As I read of the relationships between the organs in our body I am amazed that it can work at all.
I learned a new word today that I think may have some application as it relates to the body of Christ (the Church). This is clipped from the previously mentioned site. Im especially interested in the commensal relationship of bacteria in the large intestine, but this word made me think of the body of believers as well.
So, do we have any commensal Christians in the church? That would be a Christian that comes and takes and never gives but does no harm. I think that we would have to say that there is no such thing as a commensal Christian. Even though it would appear that Mikie might fit the category, as he never gives physically to the church, God does use him to give people the opportunity to share their love and prayers, and even for people to exercise those special abilities that God has given them to care for him. The other biological term I learned was mutualism. This is where the relationship between two species benefits each other. God uses the lesser parts of the body in ways that cause the greater parts to draw closer to Him. Ive said this before, and Ill say it again. In our prayers for the likes of Mikie, we are drawn closer to God, and getting closer to God is a good thing for all of us!
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