11/28 12:30 pm

Ethan’s doctor’s just finished up their rounds. Ethan’s main cardiologist and his main critical care doctor have this funny banter between them. Ms. Critical Care loves to slam Mr. cardiologist.  She is pretty good at it. Then Mr. Cardiologist says something like “I just want to be clear, Do you plan on putting me in my place all day today?” She quickly retorted “yes, absolutely”. I added in towards Mr. Cardiologist “well now you can plan your day around that.” We were chuckling about it. They are like an old married couple.

The plan for Ethan today is to keep flushing his kidneys, stay on top of lab work, removing the paralytic (😳) and supporting him.  They are starting him on methadone. Methadone helps with morphine addiction plus it is a pain medication.  

I am nervous about taking him off the paralytic.  It is a selfish nervousness. It means I have to mentally prepare for him to be delirious which is so hard. I fear he will panic. Who wouldn’t panic?  I fear he is going to try to get up again.  I made sure they were going to put his handcuffs back on. I am going to put some blankets over his tubes so he can’t fiddle with them.

They are going to give him medication to help with delirium.  I hate to see him confused and trying to get off the bed, but I just keep giving myself pep talks.  This is how we get to the next step. No pain, no gain.

His nurses (the newbie is back and his rockstar nurse from yesterday) are now hustling and bustling around trying to get things changed to start the new protocol. Cross your fingers. I hope it works.

I am going to try and wash his hair today. It is so gross. They had to glue electrodes on his head, twice, this week.  The glue leaves a crunchy, stiff, Something About Mary vibe, in his hair. He has little sores all over his scalp from the glue pulling his skin off when they are removed. They use this special solution to get the adhesive glue off. But it seems that they removed a bit of his scalp in the process. It is really oily to help break down the glue. It is gross. It has to feel gross.

They are starting his liquid diet up again. Mmmmm, protein liquid. Sounds delicious. They had trouble trying to place another feeding tube. The one placed yesterday wasn’t quite in the right spot on X-ray.  

After several attempts to ram rod the tube through the pylorus, hunched over and defeated nurse stepped away for some help. She was so sorry. Apologizing to him profusely in his comatose state while stroking his forehead. This tube goes about 2 feet from his nose into his small intestines. I can’t even begin to know what that must feel like and am glad he will never remember.

I anticipate a wild ride this afternoon. Wish us luck.