No big news.... still asleep... but some small updates which are still progress....
1. They plan to remove the chest tube tomorrow from his right lung. That is awesome.
2. They will also remove his Fentanyl drip (IV pain meds) and change him to po (oral) pain meds, which really means the nurse will crush up the pill and place it in his feeding tube.
3. Small bowel movement today, will keep trying for more...
4. They had to restrain his left wrist today. He pulled out the tube attached to his trach. Good thing we are almost always in the room with him.
5. He seems to get restless whenever we talk to him... what that means, if anything, I don't know, but we have observed it. He gets especially excited when Ashley talks to him...stands to reason!
6. He is doing a lot more single finger movements, rather than full hand and arm movements. Although, his left hand and arm seem to rarely move anymore, so... there are some nerve questions, which would be much easier to assess if he was awake, of course.
7. They cut his sedative in half during the day today, but increased it at night so he could sleep. They plan to discontinue it in 1-2 days.
8. The lung training they did today was very successful. They had him at almost normal all day, re-added the pump at night to allow him to rest. He seems to fatigue so quickly with everything. They are hoping to have him breathing independently in the next day or two.
9. "Dang his hide" (That's a Lewiston, Utah phrase for all who don't know...a big shout out to the Kim and Cindy Johnson family who introduced me to the phrase!), he seems to keep having these random fever spikes. They say it is common with head trauma patients. Only went up to 101 today, but.... it always makes me worry. He seems to go down quickly with Tylenol and the fan. He has the fan on him constantly. But... I just hate thinking that the fever can't be good for his brain. I continue to be reassured that it is common, but they are always so good about doing lab tests, urine tests, and sputum swabs to verify/rule out an infection. He is on IV antiobiotics preventatively, but..
10. His BP (Blood pressure) and PR (pulse rate) remain high today, which has been unusual for him until after his jaw surgery.
Ya' know.... I think we are going to have to rehearse our "cry of excitement" when he finally does wake up, because I know our automatic response will be to jump and cheer loud and long... and can you imagine waking up in a confused state to that response?!? Yikes!
We still have hope that he will indeed wake up. And... as anxious as we are to have that event occur, we do also think that it isn't a bad thing for his brain to get all of this good rest and recovery... and in some ways there are some tender mercies... that he hasn't been awake through all of the trauma, pain, multiple surgeries, etc. of this week. In some ways, it is nice that he has been spared this particular trial.
We want to Thank everyone again for their fasts today, prayer rolls, temple work, personal prayers, family prayers, etc.... It keeps us going!
We love you all! Scott will get quite the lung workout tomorrow and some aggressive wake training tomorrow.... so we are excited to see how he does....
Patti
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