Help for Sam

**UPDATE** - Please join our private prayer group for more updates and ways you can help!

Monday Night 2/7 Update Post:

The Team at the Eskenazi Burn Unit have said encouraging things like "This is Very Survivable" and "We are pleased with what we are seeing" but those words point to the fact that Sam is not out of the woods yet. 

Burns are tricky. Facial Swelling peaks at 48-72 hours. It takes 72 hours for the burns to fully develop. No one will know the extent of the damage until the 72 hour mark.

Sam was intubated (put on a ventilator to breathe for him) very early on Sunday and will stay intubated for at least 10 days.

Sam is in a sterile room. Only 1 person is allowed in per day. His dressings are changed at 6p eastern/5p central so visiting hours for the day are over at that time. This is not negotiable. Kari was there all day yesterday (Sunday) but was not allowed to see Sam until well into the afternoon, and then that was over at 6p. Kari was at home today with Bruce and Alyssa was at the hospital with Sam. Bruce does not completely understand what is going on, but he was definitely very agitated/concerned today about Sam.

Sam spends most of the time sedated. This is to help the healing process by allowing the brain to use all of its' energy to focus on healing by allowing all the other parts of the body to rest.

That being said, they dialed back his sedation today and Sam seemed very pleased to be able to see and hear his girlfriend, Alyssa. Part of being on a ventilator means that Sam cannot speak but he can nod his head some. The fact that the team felt like they could dial back the sedation is a good sign that Sam's general health was good enough for them to try to reduce his sedation for a time to see if he would tolerate that.

Sam has had a bronchoscopy(Lung Scope)to look inside his lungs and evaluate damage. Since lung tissue regenerates every 48 hours in normal circumstances, they will repeat the bronchoscopy 48 hours after the first one to compare how much tissue has regrown and evaluate permanent lung damage.

Sam's hands and feet are especially badly burned.

Sam is meant to have surgery on Wednesday where they will clean up what is left of foreign particles (soot & burned skin) from his skin and evaluate swelling. This will happen again on Friday and additionally skin will be taken from Sam's scalp and sent to Boston where they will grow more of Sam's skin to be used later for grafts.

The Physician Assistant Kari spoke to today said that Burns over 80% of his body means it is likely that his stay in the ICU will (God-willing) be about 80 days. If all goes well after that, he would go to a step-down Acute Occupational/Physical Therapy Facility in Indy for a month.

This is a lot of days. The Matthews family needs a marathon of prayers. I am working with Kari and a couple of other close friends to determine the best way to help Kari through all of this.

Kari needs a few days of learning what is going on to even know what kind of help she is going to need.

#1 Need: Prayer - Prayer changes things. Please pray for Sam, Kari, Bruce, Mac, & Audrey & Alyssa as often as you can.

#2 If you are able to help financially, there are several options: GoFundMe, St. Vincent Depaul Fund, Venmo, Gift Cards - Meijer/Walmart/Pilot/Love's/Subway/JimmyJohn's/TacoBell/Monical's/McDonald's/BurgerKing

#3 Bruce Helpers - Bruce has health care providers that come and on days that Kari cannot be there, an adult needs to be there to be able to report to Kari what went on.

Those are the known needs at the top of the list right now. As we learn more, we will post more. If you made it this far, THANK YOU!!!! PRAYERS ARE THE BEST GIFT!!!