progress

today was a good day.

Ford was switched from bi-pap to c-pap in a move towards weaning him off entirely. the thinking at rounds is that he could be off c-pap by monday. late morning, our nurse took off the mask to wash his face, and as he was SO very happy as soon as it came off, she gave him a good 15 minute break. during that time his sats and work of breathing remained stable.

Vik, the resident following Ford, is a bit of a douche, as Nick put it. we tend to ignore what he has to say and wait until one of the doctors who's thinking is more inline with our own comes by to press for changes we feel are right for Ford. he was the one with this whole wean-by-monday plan. he admitted he was being overly cautious, concerned about Ford's left lung lower lobe collapse. i explained Ford has chronic atelectasis but he blew that off, as he does most things we say, simply, it would seem, so he can resume talking, which he prefers to listening. luckily, he ran his plan by Mona, the fellow, who thought since he did so well off for 15 minutes, why not try 2 hours. yay!

Ford is a different baby off bi-pap - content and social. i think having the mask on must be depressing, and he tries his best just to hunker down and wait it out when it's on. this is what it looks like - so i can't blame him for being so unsettled with it:
it was wonderful to see so much of his face when it came off. i missed it these past few days.

though he was much more relaxed without the mask, he certainly doesn't seem like his "old self". kind of too relaxed - like out of it relaxed. we have to remind ourselves it is too soon to worry much about that though - it has only been 8 days since his stroke, and his body is still adjusting to the phenobarbital, which makes you a bit dopey. soon, that effect will subside and soon he will be well into healing from this most recent trauma.

near the end of his 2 hour break, he fell asleep on his tummy. happily, Mary, the intestivist, happened to be near by observing Ford's wenckebach (oh yeah - he now spontaneously goes into wenckebach no where near his dose of carvedilol) and she commented (and we made her write it down) that Ford did not have to go back on c-pap at all, as long as he remained comfortable. hurrah!

this bouyed my spirits greatly as, if he can swing 24 hours off c-pap, we can go upstairs and be that much closer to getting back home.

my mom arrived from California last night, so we left he with Ford in the evening and came home early for some much welcome decompressing time.