🚒 12/7 3:30pm

Apparently Ethan has corneal abrasions added to his list of complications. I am glad I urged that issue to be addressed. We can  be a little more aggressive with his eye lubing to head off a bigger problem. They will have to tape his eyes shut at night. He has now been started on an antibiotic ointment for his eyes and they should recover fine. 

I am sad that today is the last day with his current nurse. She gets the next few days off. Tomorrow will be a new nurse but hopefully one we have had before (and liked).

Ethan is starting back up with a fever again. Everyone is on it. He is getting blood cultures daily still but we don’t need any infections anywhere. Another respiratory culture is going to be done since he still needs routine suctioning. He hates that.

My friend Heather compared Ethan to Jason voorhees from Friday the 13 th. Jason was the killer that could get shot multiple times, hit with a shovel in the head and more.  He would still be able to ambulated around like nothing happened.

Ethan is proving sedation won’t keep him from his goal of getting up and walking around. Seems the horse tranquilizer isn’t enough and he needs the elephant tranquilizer. They have turned up his sedation and added a different sedative to add a a “change in scenery” to his sedation protocol.

I think he is acting up because his nurse went to lunch. I would imagine he likes her as much as I do. He just misses her. The stand in nurse is getting a run for her money. He is keeping her quite busy.

One of the doctors said Ethan may be able to come off ECMO by the end of the week but he will remain intubated for the next couple of weeks because of his lung pressures. Bummer.

His left arm has become quite swollen with pitting edema that they suspect is from simple gravity and lack of movement. I propped it up today hoping that will help.

The fire alarm went off today. No one even flinched. It was kind of exciting for me. Lights were flashing, an announcement came on the loud speaker. Someone pulled the fire alarm 5 floors down and they are investigating it. I briefly came up with a plan to keep Ethan safe from a fire that involved taking his suction tubing and connecting it to the sink to keep the fire out of the room.  Totally unrealistic but I should get creativity points.

Ethan is holding steady. Hope he continues moving forward.