A Couple More Steps!

Dad had a pretty quiet night. The nurse said he had trouble with pain a couple times but otherwise did great. His PEEP was changed to 6 yesterday just as I was leaving and this morning we are down to a 5. The oxygen percent is 55%. They have switched his ventilator to "cpap" mode which means he is doing some of the work now too. His white blood cell count is down to 14.5. Everything is still moving in the right direction!

Mom said that physical therapy was in this morning and Dad was actually sitting and even stood up for a little bit. They are saying that he is very strong which is awesome considering how much time he has been spending in bed.

I was talking to a couple people yesterday and realized that I had not explained very well what happened when Dad had to be put on the ventilator. Last Thursday was a very rough day for Dad. He was on the biPap and they had to keep increasing his oxygen. This was due to the pain plus pneumonia plus he was getting tired as it got harder to breathe. They transferred him to ICU and decided to put him on the ventilator. The ventilator or "vent" is a tube that goes down his windpipe and forces air directly into his lung. To put this tube in they have to sedate the patient. They then keep the patient sedated so that he is relaxed and lets the machine help him breathe. They periodically take his sedation away just to see how he reacts. They want to keep him at this fine line of not fighting the machine but not too sedated.

On Friday and most of Saturday, Dad was very sedated and didn't respond much when we talked to them. By Sunday they were taking the sedation completely off and he was opening his eyes and turning his head to our voices. He is still on the vent and on a pain medicine drip but they have completely taken off the sedation. He is aware when we are here and nods or shakes his head to our questions. We are now making these little steps forward so that he can eventually get off of the vent. We are praying that he will get to the point soon where he can just breathe on his own with some oxygen going into the nasal cannula (a tube that blows oxygen directly into his nostrils). We are many steps from this but are trusting that we are heading in the right direction. Thanks for praying!