A Good Day

Breakfast runs into lunch. Lunch runs into dinner. Dinner runs into bedtime. Each day is a steady stream of phone calls, visitors, and watching Eric's monitor. Minutes run into hours. Hours run into days. Days run into two weeks now we've been here. You'd think it would be the opposite, but time goes by very quickly in the hospital. I rarely know the day of the month and have to think extemely hard to know the day of the week. I can't believe we've been here two weeks already. I keep waiting to wake up from the dream. No, the nightmare.

Speaking of dreams, I had a strange dream last night. I got on a ferris wheel. A unfamiliar woman got on with me. We started going around, up, over, down, and back up again. Early on in the ride, I noticed a bolt holding our chair was loose, but I couldn't get the operator's attention to stop the ride. We started going faster and faster, and I couldn't decide if I was having fun or if I was scared to death. And that was the end.

Eric had a wonderful day today. The doctor came in the morning, and we turned off all his sedation so we could check his neuro status. Once Eric woke up, I expected him to be extremely short of breath, but he wasn't. He breathed rather comfortably. I asked the doctor how much longer he thought we'd have to do the sedation/paralyzing thing, and he suggested we just leave him off it today and see how he does. So we did, and Eric did great. He's been breathing comfortably all day at his own respiratory rate with assistance from the ventilator (CPAP 8 with PSV 30, for my medical friends). His PaCO2 was still a problem (87) this morning, and his PaO2 is low (60s, but his SaO2 has been in the high 90s all day) considering he's on 50% O2. So his lungs still have a long way to go, but I'm encouraged and hopeful. We'll see how tomorrow goes. Thanks to ALL of you for your continued prayers.