July 22, 2010

It has been a day of miraculous surprises!!

The morning started off badly at 3 am when, during the time the nurses were bathing Linda they had to torn off power to the special surface of her anti-bedsore mattress, and they couldn't get the power to come back on when they got her new linens on the bed and got her dressed. Everyone involved was pretty upset, but they called the bed company to get a new one delivered so they could lift her up on the hoist and switch beds again. When the technicians arrived they decided it would be just as easy to raise the bed up to the maximum, cannibalize the needed parts of the replacement, and crawl under Linda's bed to make repairs, so as to avoid transferring from bed to bed.

Then the ruckus attendant upon their repair efforts started with two burly guys crawling beneath Linda to work on her bed, she opened her eyes to see what the commotion was all about! Since that time she has been following the nurses and other caregivers around the room with her eyes all day, looking at me and blinking, and following doctor and nurse commands to "squeeze my hand" and "wiggle your toes."

We already had a meeting with the team of doctors scheduled for early afternoon to discuss our plan for her, which of course has changed now. The first thing she wants and needs is to get that endotracheal tube out of her mouth and get off the ventilator. However, her throat and mouth muscles may be too weak to protect her airway, so we are going to have a tracheotomy in the morning. Then she will get a feeding tube through the abdominal wall directly into her stomach and threaded down through the duodenum, so there won't be stomach contents for her to throw up and aspirate, but she will be getting nourishment through her own guts rather than through the IV. This will help her get strong faster. She didn't want a trache or feeding tube if she was going to remain unconscious, but now that she has awakened she will get well a lot faster and more safely with these things than without them.

If you are planning to come visit her you are still very welcome, of course, but she will probably be in surgery most of the day tomorrow - Friday -  so Saturday or Sunday would be better choices.

I'll keep everyone posted. Love to you all and thank you for all your prayers.