Good Morning Visit

Jim Kendrick and I had a great visit with Dan this morning.  The ICU RN allowed us in for about 30 minutes in spite of it being during the shift change.  His early morning wakeup went better than yesterday.  He is not obeying commands yet, but waking up and being agitated is still a good sign.  His head/brain injury is still the top concern.  The only way to know for sure takes time.  The next step is to wean him off the ventilator, remove the vent tube and remove the sedation medication .  They will then be able to get a better handle on the brain injury by communicating with him as he will be awake.  They also are going to need to get a feeding tube to his stomach soon.  They pinned his lower jaw and wired his jaws together so the vent tube goes down his right nostril.  His jaw will be like that for 6 - 8 weeks and his hands may be in casts for that long as well.  The RN said he will have an infection somewhere with this many injuries it is inevitable, hopefully the antibiotics and Dan's body will fight it off.  They have been taking cultures of his blood trying to figure out what bacteria they will be fighting.  Relatively good news overall, but these next 3 to 4 days will be critical as the wean him off the vent and sedation.  Pray that all goes well.
K