The news this afternoon is pretty upbeat. Yale continues to be alert, aware of his surroundings and able to respond to questions and commands. He is watching TV as I write. He continues to be febrile on and off, but it is a bit less than a few days ago. His white blood cell count, which had been bouncing around between 18 and 25 the whole time is now down to 13.5, the lowest since he has been in.
This morning I was contacted to give consent for a tracheostomy, which will move the respirator tube from his mouth to a direct connection to a temporary incision in the trachea. This will certainly be more comfortable, less damaging to his mouth, throat and trachea and will give the respiratory therapists more options with his weaning protocol. But it does indicate the he is not ready to be weaned and that the process may be quite extended. It will just take patience. (As of 3:30 pm today - Thursday - they had not yet done the tracheostomy).
Subjectively, Dad seems to be making good progress and to be much better these past few days. We just need to start getting his lungs functioning a bit better and he can truly begin weaning from the respirator.
I look forward to posting more postive news soon.
David
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Thank you David for the encouraging update. I am planning to visit him tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteTerry