Out of ICU 09/09/11

8/26/12 ICU loosing muscle tone and weight fast

August 26, 2011

Attached to a ventilator, I hesitated on the trach. I couldn't read up on it fast enough. He was breathing on his own, but the doctors said it was vital to help him breath to allow his body to heal. Every day he would lose more muscle tone. He wouldn't track for the doctors, but would follow sounds by turning his head. The doctors said it was a reflex.

9/4 fevor 102; surgery one lateral upper leg sewn; no dialysis; every other day, no antibiotics to bring down fevor and blood pressure low.
9/5 went to Select specialty hospital stable, DNR, hep drip, dialysis every other day.

9/9/11 passy muir valve

His stay in ICU was insurance driven, and despite the fact that he was still very fragile and critical, his allotted time to stay in the ICU was up and he had to be released into a skilled nursing facility. I appealed to get him into a specialty hospital instead for better care. Before his release from ICU the doctors were rushing to ween him off the ventilator, dialysis and took him into surgery to staple his upper thigh with a low grade temperature that they never seemed to pinpoint. Looking back I don't think the surgery was a good idea....he had a set back when he came out of the surgery. The family learned about the set backs in an education class for strokes and brain injuries that was held at the hospital. We learned that our loved ones would take a few steps toward progress and then have relapses that would  take them a few steps backwards then, have to start all over again. We also learned that we are not alone dealing with a loved one with a head injury. I learned somewhere that there is a new head injury every 15seconds. The number has risen tremendously with the wars in the middle east.

When he arrived at the specialty hospital the next day he seemed more unresponsive. My brother seemed to think that he just needed to let his mind and body rest. His sister took this picture of the passy muir valve that he received with a caption "he can talk now"....but he never made as sound. I am not sure if this passy muir valve was such a good idea either. I learned later that this type of trach has a very cumbersome plastic bag that crowds the air passage way. I can only imagine the suffocating feeling this type of trach can bring. The idea of the passy muir valve is to produce sounds out of his throat. I wondered how in the world he was going to talk out of his throat when it was going to be hard enough to speak from his mouth. It took everything he had to open his mouth and produce a smile.....It would be months before we would see another smile again.