🎄12/24 8:45 am

 I went to bed early last night. I was so tired. I slept well but when I woke up, my sinus’s were all pissed off. I was first to the shower. Total bonus!

I went to go get coffee this morning and the machine is “out of order”. Crap! I was foggy headed and headed back to the room. I sat on the bed and stared at the floor. I am not sure how long I did this.  This is how efficient my brain is without coffee. 

I went down to get coffee at the cafe. It was closed. So I put in an order from Starbucks. It’s about a 7 minute walk. I took it as an opportunity to exercise my heart and walked as fast as I could to get my heart pumping. I also got a coffee for the nurse again. I know his flavor now. It makes me feel good to make someone else’s day. He was so happy.

Ethan’s nurse wore a cool shirt today in the spirit of the holiday. It made me think of certain sorority sisters.  It is a Big Foot with a Santa face and says the word “Believe” under it. It made me smile.

Ethan had a decent night. The new paralytic they are using needed to be adjusted because he was busting through it. Freaking kid. He got a lot of fluid off of himself as well as his kidney values came down which is great. Still haven’t found out about the “missing kidney”.

Ethan still has a fever. They put him on a cooling blanket. He is in his skivies, with the fan on, with his stroke boots and stroke wrist splint. The culprit of the fever is the lungs. Just battling infection/pneumonia still. He has been on the vent for over a month. Apparently this is one issue they find patients with long term vent use. We need to get that tube out. It’s so weird to think his immune system is going to be compromised forever.

I am enriching him today with the movie Pineapple Express. Next up is going to be some sort of Christmas movie or music.

It has been one week since Ethan’s cardiac arrest. One week ago his recovery was derailed.  Perhaps derailed isn’t the right way to think about it. One week ago we took a really long detour. It has been a long week of ups and downs. I do feel like we are headed in the right direction again.

They weaned more of his IV feeds over night and increased the amount he is getting orally. Things are moving through nicely so I think he is going to avoid ileus this time around.

The surgeon came and left his incision uncovered. No dressing. That is the first time. It looks pretty good I think. He is still rashy but it looks much better than it did. He still has the pacing wires and his chest tube holes are still granulating in.  They still need to be covered.

The plan is to have a low key day today. The sun is out. I am enjoying that.