Goodnight friends and family -
Cold here in Florida - 30s at night and only 50s during the day (hell of alot better than the 5 degress we left in Ohio!) - all the locals are shivering whilest we northerners are wallowing in it!
A better day spent with Kerry. She is still off the ventilator yet remains trached (tube in her neck for breathing). The collar of the trach in her throat was deflated somewhat meaning that she is doing more of the breathing hereself. Weaning her to more breathing on her own is a process that will take several days. She spent a lot of time today coughing up copious quantities of yellow yuck from her very wet lungs - this requireds us to suction her frequentlly to clear her mouth and throat. This coughing really hurts Kerry but is so essential to her recovery. (Kyla and John are the master suctioners - yaya hates it!)
She had an outstanding young nurse today named Shannon who did an appraisal/evaluation for Kyla, John and myself covering Kerry from the psoriasis in her scalp to the sore on the back of her heel (in other words, head to toe). She explained and gave us outlooks on each inch of her injured body. For this I was immensely grateful and given so much comfort. Sadly, it took asking for this review from the nurse to get it - you really have to pull teeth to get any info it seems. We feel better about what is going on now that we have a clear understanding of Kerry's entire situation and plan of care.
She went 5.5 hours this afternoon on one dose of pain meds when she was getting them once an hour just a week ago. Nurse Shannon walked us through the pain med weaning process as well which is essential to her recovery. After several days as she is, she will learn to swallow again as she has been suctioned for many many days now. She willl then be reintroduced to liquid, then soft foods and how to swallow as her throat will be somewhat damaged by all this trach stuff. Then we start speech therapy to find her voice again.
All of the bones are slowly recovering, swelling is coming down, road rash is resolving save for one nasty necrotic area on her arm (that means icky dead skin over large wound that is being cleared with a cream made of papaya juice which acts like maggots eating away the dead tissue) - reacall, maggots used to really clean up wounds!!!! Sutures and staples are all out (many many many!). Today I (Kyla ) added soft music on my ipod dcking station to her bedside - this really brought a smile to her face and eyes - this sure beats the 28 days of beeps and blips she has been listening to! Also hung up lots of pictures and drawings from our wee ones - brightend the room and the atmosphere....
tomorrow we start Starbucks, red wine and snacks - this will get her back in no time flat I am sure! Things are looking up for yaya - no tears tonight!
ps to review the blog, recall that all you have to type on the address line is 5minutemoment.blogspot.com
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