Jimm's surgery was evidently bumped this morning by more more needy Shock Trauma patients, and had not been done at mid afternoon(Shock Trauma and Surgical Critical Care share OR's).
Some positive things today.. he opened his eyes for Deborah last night which is a sign of a lightening of his sedative and pain med levels. To compliment that, they are fine tuning the ventilator in order to ween him off and insert a trach, a tube put into the trachea to facilitate breathing.. instead of the more invasive endo tracheal tube he has had, and they are tube feeding him directly into the stomach.. a big step up in nourishment as compared to IV feeding. He was starting to get a bed sore, so they now have him in a new high-tech bed that moves him around constantly and automatically. His tissue swelling, which was dramatic following the first procedure last week, has continued to reduce itself nicely and he looks much more like himself again (I didn't mention this bizarre phenomenon earlier because we were getting enough bad news at the time). Finally, Deborah says the night and day nurses are doing an effective tag-team act, alternating back and forth so that information on Jimm's condition is transferred between just two people.. resulting in the best possible care.
He remains on a gentle 24 hour dyalisis machine by his bedside that detoxifies his blood in a way that helps to keep blood pressure steady. Also, a doctor on the team has been asked about blood donations, and he will get back to the family soon about how to proceed. Jimm has needed a total of 8 pints to this point (see below).
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