Thursday, April 30

They say your style of life's a drag, And that you must go other places. But just don't you feel too bad when you get fooled by smiling faces:

Happy Birthday, Deano. We had red velvet cake and a special chocolate cup cake just for you. We thought the smell of the chocolate would get to you. Guess we will have to come up with a different idea.

Sorry to all you out there waiting for the daily update. I left this morning to take Riley to school and am just getting in for the evening. By the way, May made it safely here to California from Seattle.

So, the SIMV is completely off. Which means Dean is breathing on his own and the ventilator remains on to keep the air path open (so it doen't feel like he is breathing from a straw). The plan for today was to begin to wean Dean from the ventilator all together. So how to accomplish that? Well I think I may have the explaination for you: For 1 hour at a time and slowly increasing so it would be for a whole day; they disconnect the ventilator and place Dean on what is called a trace coller (which is basically an oxygen mask around the trace). Today, however, their attemps not so good. He was only able to be off the ventilator for 5 minutes.

Moving forward:

Try and get Dean weaned from the ventilator and the Dr.'s are shooting for mid week next week. When Dean can tolerate the trace collar for a 24 hour period then he will be moved out of ICU into a regular room. Now, if it looks like the weaning process is unsuccessful then they may have Deano moved to a facility that would accommodate the ventilator.

Deano, medically speaking, is still in a coma so the physical therapy/rehab process will be minimal since he is not responsive. What they will begin to do for rehab at this point is begin to sit him up in a chair for short periods of time. When he is out of the ICU then the next set of Dr.'s will work to stimulate him more and attempt to draw him out of his dreams. Must be some really good dreamin going on in that head of yours.

So here is the part that I can no longer sugar coat for you out there and especially not for myself . I spoke to Carl, one of the Dr.'s on Vesspa's team, and the truth of the matter is; this may be as good as it gets for Deano. Now I know the flip side may be not. And I also know this, because Dean and I talked about this a lot, Dean does NOT want to live out the rest of his life as he is right now or any variation of the way he is right now.

So I ask when is it enough, ENOUGH.

It breaks my heart to look into his eyes and realize there is absolutely nothing happening. And though he feels no pain, (so they say), right now I feel in my body everytime they poke him, or pinch him or suction his lungs through the trace.

Don't you worry 'bout a thing; Don't you worry 'bout a thing, mama. Cause I'll be standing on the side when you check it out.................................................