Richard's Music Concert

This year Richard was part of an elite musical group at his school. Over 100 kids auditioned and only 20 made it, including him. He has truly enjoyed being a part of this group. They perform with the choir but they only play percussion instruments. Everything is from memory, they don't read music. Tonight they had their final concert so we took a picture of him and his ensemble teacher, Mrs. McKenzie which he loves. She is the cutest, toughest teacher out there. I am just amazed at how big my 'little' boy is getting. This concert to finish out 5th grade comes just after his first 'dance' last Friay night.

Change of Seasons...

This quote was given to me by a friend at school and I thought it was fitting for lots of reasons right now. Dealing with the loss of a loved one, several seasons of activities ending, school closing for the summer...what do you think??

"The song is complete, but the melody lingers on." - Irving Berlin

The question is, how does that melody of things passed affect our lives???

Our Ray

Romans 8:37 - 39

"No , in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angles nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

May Ray feel the love our our Lord!

Ray's Funeral Arrangements

Ray's funeral will be held at Donnelley's Funeral Home in Irving. Viewing will be Thursday (tomorrow) from 6 to 8pm. The funeral will be Friday at 10am also at Donnelley's. Please pass along this information. Please call Staci at 214-687-6941 if you have any questions. We look forward to celebrating Ray's life with each of you that shared a part of his life.

Peace has arrived - Happy Mother's Day

Around 12:40 a.m. Wednesday, May 6, 2009 - Ray O'Briant took his last breath as his brother and his father said goodbye at his bedside. Ray joined his mother in heaven just in time to celebrate Mother's Day. May we all be joyful in our wonderful memories of our times with Ray. Keith and I look forward to hearing and remembering those memories with you. Ray had many friends and many cherished times.

Arrangements will be posted here as soon as they are finalized.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the major outpouring of love, affection, and prayers over the past three weeks. It is only with the support system such as this that a family makes it through the tragedies of life.

Part 2

Today was a day of full of events and waiting. After a day of being off dialysis, Ray's kidney numbers increased by one point from 1.6 to 2. 7. This was to be expected since his kidneys were no longer receiving any help from dialysis. At 12:15, the doctors released the ventilator and allowed Ray to breathe on his own. All medications were stopped except sedation medicine to keep him comfortable. To this hour, Ray is still fighting. He has been breathing on his own since the ventilator was turned off. While his breaths are between 6 to 9 breaths per minute and very labored, he is still breathing on his own. We are remaining encouraged and support his weak body. We prayerfully await what tomorrow holds for us.



Thank you for all your kind words and memories of Ray. Please continue to keep Ray and his family in your thoughts and prayers. Feel free to contact us at any time for updates. You can call Keith at 214-681-5270 or Staci (Keith's wife) at 214-687-6941. Please pass along this blog to any who might know Ray.



More to come tomorrow.

HIs body is worn out

Today we learned that despite recent positive progression this weekend, Ray's kidneys are just not strong enough to support his body. The kidneys are functioning at 40% but that is not strong enough to rid the body of toxins that naturally fill in the body. Knowing that combined with needing constant 24 hour dialysis which is adding more stress to his already failing heart, the family stopped dialysis today. This forces the body to rid itself of fluids which Ray is not able to do completely. Tomorrow we will stop the ventilator and allow him to breathe on his own which the doctors say he might be able to do for about an hour. The rest is in God's hands.

As I reflect on what has happened the past two weeks and what the next couple of days hold, I have to think that as much of an emotional roller coaster ride this has been for us, it has been that much more for him. I ask that you pray that God's will be done tomorrow whatever that might be. Miracles can still happen and he could function on his own. It would't be the first time that things have turned around for Ray and his health. If there are any thoughts you would like to share, please feel free to call or leave a message here. Thank you from the O'Briant clan for following and supporting this journey.

More to come....

The power of prayer in numbers

"WOW" is about all I can say to our weekend. As you probably read, we found out Friday that this could possibly be our weekend to say goodbye to Ray. Friday the doctors told the family that the medical treatment he was getting was basically keeping him stable and no progress was really being made. He had a fever of at least 107 for over 24 hours which eventually begins to kill anything still functioning internally. WELLLLL, Friday night we made a vigil at the hospital and spread the word of the negative direction his health was going. Friday night his fever began to come down to less than 100, he was still responsive to visitors with hand squeezes, eyes slightly open, and nods. Saturday brought a lot of visitors in which some cases he was very responsive to and continued no fever. His vital signs showed improvement and he was becoming very stable. Finally, over night his heart rate, blood pressure, other vital signs had been normal long enough without medication they felt he was improving significantly. This morning they were able to up the pressure of the dialysis to pull fluid from his body at a greater rate. This enabled them to administer Lasix at noon today so force even more fluid from his body. Prayers were answered when he began producing urine at triple the rate. Things are looking up and show signs of his kidneys beginning to function again. Obviously our thoughts and prayers worked over the weekend so please continue to keep those coming.

More to come tomorrow after the doctors come for rounds and express their opinions of this weekend's progress.

Pray for God's peace and a sense of calm

Today the family met with the doctors and learned that things have taken a turn for the worse with Ray. He still has some brain function left because he will occasionally respond to someone talking to him or to being asked to squeeze hands or wiggle his feet, but he has developed a fever of over 107* for more than the past 24 hours. This is not good because whatever is causing the fever is not responding to antibiotics therefore the fever will begin to "fry" his brain. (Their words not mine). They have said that the family needs to take the weekend to make decisions on how long to carry this out or the hospital ethics board will have to make the decisions on when to shut off his life support. As you can imagine, this will be a rough weekend. We pray that God will continue to work miracles or give him peace. None of his organs are working on their own as they all need assistance from machines at this point. It is just really hard to imagine him not being "OK" since he still responds to commands and questions. Please continue to pray for healing and his family's decisions as well as the decisions of the doctors. I will post more as we know more.

Thank you for your thoughts and time in keeping up with our journey.