9-7

It’s been a busy week for Walker, many doctor visits and decisions to be made. And as he told me, making decisions a 20 yr old kid should not have to make. Agreed! They are preparing him and us for his return home, this time with more support equipment to make his stay more successful this time around.

His pulmonary docs are working at getting the ok from insurance to supply us with a CPAP machine, if I got that right, one that he can use at night to assist in pulling off the CO2 which has been the problem his lungs not doing this effectively during sleep hours. So, as soon as they ok this and we get it set up, he will be discharged home :-).

He has to decide between not so good or not so good, a fistula in his upper arm to conduct dialysis or a peritoneal dialysis which leaves a tube protruding from his stomach. We hope and pray that whichever one he chooses that it’s a temporary fix till his youthful kidneys kick back in. He has heard mixed reviews on that subject this week from different doctors, some yea some nay but nobody can say for sure. We are counting on Gods miracle healing graces to take care of this for Walker.

After a visit from Dr. Botta this week, who went to see Walker to encourage him to go ahead with the PD version of dialysis as it’s the easiest to manage, God bless Dr. Botta! Walker has decided to accept Dr. Botta’s sage advice. Probably in a couple of weeks, he will have the surgery to place the line in his abdomen. Something he is really not looking forward to but it is a necessity of his new reality. He will be able to do dialysis at home which will be much better.

On the lighter side, Dr Botta invited Walker, when he is strong enough to stand for about 4 hrs, to watch one of his surgeries. How cool is that!! Dr. Botta has been Walkers champion from day one, rooting him on through it all especially when he was his doctor during ECMO. And Walker & Candy got to go back to visit the ECMO floor this week to say hi to some of his favorite nurses, Hannah and Mary (in pic). It was very sweet.

I am sure many of you have seen all the stories of late in the news about vaping illnesses and the respiratory problems they are causing. I have not written about it in Walkers story as I or we were not sure in the past to the extent it played a role in his illness but now it seems clear that his rather innocent use of what was supposed to be a simpler safer way to smoke was just the opposite.

While no one can say exactly for sure that it did or didn’t play a pivotal role in Walker getting deathly ill, his mother and I surely will tell you that we know in our hearts, and thought we knew early on, that it was a major contributing factor to his bodies reaction or maybe it’s lack of reaction to a deadly virus. And now we know by the description of all the other cases with the extreme diarrhea, vomiting, high fevers, and pneumonia, just like Walker had, that his vaping played a role in causing him to get so seriously ill.

So, from our family to yours, please get the word out about teenage, or any age really, dangers of vaping, especially the flavored Juul products. Please police your kids and find out if they are doing it and tell them our story and the many others that we are now hearing about so that they take the danger seriously!!

We can only pray that God moves swiftly to stop this habit our teenagers have adopted as so cool around country by the millions. The epidemic, as they are now calling it, has only just started unfortunately, but it is not too late to make a difference in the life of your family or someone you know that is vaping.

Thank you all for supporting us in prayer, please pray for continued healing of Walkers lungs and kidneys. Your steadfastness in prayer for him and us is truly felt and it bears fruit. Amen and Amen.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/walker-mcknight&rcid=r01-156794948448-5c36cbf293f74628&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w