Thursday, March 5, 2015

Update # 178

8 Years

Off the vent!!! This time after 2 days, 1.5 hours.

Jeff had a good night resting but did receive 2 units of blood in the early morning hours. The morning x-ray looks better than the 2 previous days.

Wow, folks, what a day!

Sedation was stopped at 4:00 AM with only a little pain med continuing. At 5:35 AM, the trial began to see how Jeff would do breathing on his own. At 6:30, numbers looked good and the vent was turned back on till the doc came later. Respiratory techs came at 8:20 to do a small trial but were not pleased with how sleepy Jeff appeared to them. The pulmonary doc came in 10 minutes later and agreed Jeff was sleepy from the pain med. She recommended the pain med be stopped and they would return in a couple of hours to check on Jeff’s alertness. It was almost Noon when the respiratory techs came back and were pleased to see Jeff more awake and numbers looking good. So at almost straight up Noon, Jeff was extubated!!! He was again told not to talk but due to the shortness of intubation, it was a little over an hour when Jeff whispered his first words. Jeff wanted a Barnes water mug filled half with ice and half with cranberry juice! Sorry, nothing by mouth till the swallow test tomorrow morning.

Two infectious docs came in and were pleased with Jeff’s progress. They commented that the liver enzymes are dropping. (this same thing happened with the multi-focal pneumonia in 2011)

The thoracic PA came to check on Jeff and said the chest tube will not be removed until Monday. Easier to leave it in and be sure there are no more problems. It is not causing Jeff any pain.

One BMT doc gave us some really surprisingly good news. Matt (Jeff’s donor), apparently Jeff wants only your blood! The lab did further testing overnight on this hemolytic anemia. Remember last week when Jeff received 2 units of blood? Well, last night’s testing showed Jeff does not like those 2 units in his body. There’s a certain antigen in them that Jeff cannot tolerate. They figure when these 2 units are out of Jeff’s system in a couple of weeks, he’ll be back to normal red blood cell wise. Before his transplant, Jeff was O negative but his blood became Matt’s A positive. At the beginning of the update, I said Jeff received 2 units of blood early morning. Well, they were not A positive but the universal donor of O negative. Crazy how it all works but great news that Jeff does not have a new issue.

I asked another BMT team doc when Jeff would now begin physical therapy. He said probably next Tuesday after the chest tube is taken out on Monday. He also said Jeff is doing well and this pneumothorax was just a “minor blip”.

Surprise – 6:10 PM, a gal from physical therapy walked in Jeff’s room. She had heard Jeff was ready to start moving. After doing some foot, leg. and arm exercises, she had Jeff sit up on the edge of the bed! He kicked both legs out 10 times each. Then she said to try and stand up. Now, she said it would not be successful but wanted to see what he could do. No standing but she was impressed with all that Jeff did. She said with doing all he did, Jeff was “up 6 minutes”. He nodded that it felt good to move and said to her that he is ready to begin his 3 times a week sessions. As soon as he was back in his reclining position, Jeff was almost asleep.

We enjoyed a visit this afternoon from our wonderful friends who came the night of February 13th and stayed with Jeff and Meridith after he was intubated. They certainly enjoyed seeing Jeff awake. Thanks for helping so much that night.

An amazing day! Who would have thought that from Tuesday morning to this afternoon, how much progress Jeff has made in his recovery. Guess this was just – minor, hiccup, blip. (but he still didn’t have to scare us) Our huge thanks for those continued prayers. God’s strength holds us up each day.

love,

Marcia