Newest Update...TDS was awake and responsive for a bit!!
11/09
There are good days and bad. But Sunday was good. Jason had another surgical procedure to prepare his leg for it's final surgery. The doctors told Suzy that the tissue looked good and they are hopeful he can be "formalized" by mid-week. Since things don't always happen on schedule, we don't count on specific dates anymore.
During rounds this morning, Dr. Kulvatanyou, MD, a trauma surgeon and the attending physician this morning directed the nursing staff to begin weaning Jason off of one of his sedation drugs to see how he would respond. Until now, there has not been much response except when the meds were stopped, and then he would likely have a bad reaction. Usually these episodes happened when they would stop the drug quickly. Today Dr."K" asked Rachel, RN, to slowly reduce the sedation and begin to measure his reactions. In a matter of a couple hours he was awake and responsive to commands. His eyes were following movement in the room and staff could measure his awareness of pain in his extremities. This is big!
Even after surgery this afternoon, as pain medicine continued, but with the sedation drugs turned off, Jason was alert and responsive. He was moving limbs, responding to specific questions with specific numbered blinks. He squeezed my hand on request several times, made some grimaces at pain, moved his head and neck about and followed staff with his eyes. Considering the level of pain medication he is still receiving and given he just had another surgery with general anesthesia hours ago, we are very encouraged.
We refer to the sedation medicine "Propofol" (forgive me if I don't have this right) as "Milk of Amnesia"(not our word, but the Nurses). Its power is that it gives the recovering patient rest, but also causes them to remember very little of the bad days. The problem with these drugs is that sooner or later they have to stop. For the moment, Jason is tolerating life without one of the big ones.
There was a "No Change" CT Scan Saturday, which told us that there was not problems in the gut. There is however some infection in the body and still some mild pneumonia. The Respiratory Therapists are working very hard and tell us his lungs are improving.
The jaw and tracheostomy look fine. Fever is minimal. Every day is a new day with something else to challenge the body and the spirit, but we are very thankful for the prayers and support of so many that are sustaining Jason and us.
With so much tragedy around us we are truly grateful.
Stan & Suzy