Aug 21, 2011 - Sunday
8 weeks on life support today. Scottie is doing better every day. They've stopped all sedation today. He's been awake since Wednesday but they've been "weaning" him off of his drugs gradually. On Thursday they performed a tracheostomy on Scott - a hole in his trachea (at the base of his neck) through which he would be attached to the ventilator. It's a transitional phase for patients ready to be weaned off the vent. No more big and uncomfortable tube down his throat. There is only a skinny feeding tube in his mouth right now.
He is coming back slowly and it is hard to see him so weak. His eyes sometimes stare helplessly and submissively like the eyes of a child who realizes his dependency on others.
His ventilated O2 is 36. Blood O2 is at 96. 37 breaths per minute. Temperature is 37.7 C. There are two drugs for high blood pressure in the dispenser and one syringe with saline water.
He doses on and off, I think sometimes he is dreaming with his eyes half-open. I bought him a portable DVD player with several light-hearted movies. For a movie lover like Scott, he is acting very atypical, more like me when watching a movie, falling asleep 15 minutes into it. But that's ok.
He lost tons of weight. The nurse says probably close to 60 pounds or so. There is no visible muscle left on his arms and legs. It takes a lot of effort for him to squeeze my hand and move his toes. My poor Scottie. But as long as you are recovering this does not matter. We'll fatten you up and get you back on your feet.
Tom has left Marseille yesterday. He also returned the rental car and now we are carless for a day until we make it to the airport and rent us one on Monday. This morning Steve and I took took a cab to go to Church. It was an expensive ride - 60 euro!
Aug 22, 2011 - Monday
This week they started weaning Scott off of breathing machine. Today he spent one whole hour breathing on his own with his trache disconnected and closed in.
Aug 23, 2011 - Tuesday
2 hours off the vent.
Aug 24, 2011 - Thursday
Scott was off the vent for 4 hours straight today. He started using a board and a marker to communicate with us. It's hard to read (but even harder for Scott to write) because his hand is trembling and many times it's unreadable. But with persistence on both sides we get our thoughts across. His first writing was: "Get really lonely." I hugged and kissed him many many times. I just wanted to hold him and make him feel loved. But before he wrote that, his lips said: "Where have you been?"That's the hard thing about being more and more awake, poor guy. Just imagine being in the foreign hospital and in the broken body that cannot always cooperate.
Then Scott wanted something we could not understand, he attempted to say it with his lips, he tried to write it, he even drew a picture of it.. I thought it looked like a bed, but finally we could decode the word "iPod" on the board. I gave him his phone and he tried to use it as a notepad. But those keys were too small for his trembling fingers, so we ditched that idea.
He kept on practicing his old-fashioned way of writing all day today. "I need to fix my bike!" "Call Grad school!" "I have to pee."....
He ate some jello.
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