Ron walked to the chair and sat there today for an hour and a half!!  That is very helpful for his lungs for him to be more upright.  They have his O2 input at 35% still today, but have lowered the peep from 8 to 5.  His saturation level was staying up at 98-99%.  They have added another machine to measure his CO2 output as he exhales.  It will help monitor things as they slowly wean him from the vent.  They also got him a different ventilator with a talk mode, and he was able to talk for 5 minutes or so.  They can only have that mode on for short periods right now, as it gives him less support from the vent.

He passed the ice-chip and water swallowing evaluation today.  Boy, you should have seen that smile when he tasted that first swallow of water!  He has a bit of thrush on his tongue, and they have to be careful that is does not get to his lung, so they will be treating that before he can have more water or food by mouth.  Meanwhile, he will continue on the feeding tube.

His Infectious Disease Control doctor said he will need to be on the Cefepine antibiotic for at least another 2 weeks.  His lung x-ray still has quite a bit of white, especially the right lung.

They removed the stitches from the trach site, and will be changing it to a smaller trach tomorrow.  He still coughs quite a bit... so hard sometimes that it gags him and he starts throwing up his tube food.  That is scary, because he could aspirate on it. He says it really burns when that happens, due to the stomach acid.  I don't think he's tolerating that tube food well, yet, even though it's the third or fourth one they've tried.  Hopefully, he won't have to be on it much longer.

They are still adjusting his depression medication, and he has been quite down.  We try to help him stay up, but so much of it is body chemistry that is just out of whack.  He has his little DVD player, and last night watched Down Periscope and today had Support Your Local Sherrif on.  Both of those usually bring up his spirits.  He has been reading everyone's messages.  Those help, too.

Thank you, everyone for being so suppportive!  He's come such a long way in these 3 weeks!

Love,
EJ