1/23 9:20 pm

Ethan sat up today for 6 minutes. He did let me know he was sore when he woke up this morning. I told him we could skip sitting up if he was too sore and he shook his head NO!  His nurse asked him if he was going to sit up longer than 5 1/2 minutes. He shook his head Yes. 

We told him he better rest up for it and he took a bit of a nap. At 11:00 am a few ladies, which were prearranged by his nurse, came in to help. All have worked with him before.  We had to pry his cozy blanket from his boney fingers. What he didn’t know, was I wrapped the blanket around a heating pad.

The nurses slowly sat Ethan up and he was told to sit tall. One of the nurses was massaging lotion into his back. We were all cheering him on. It got to 6 minutes and he turned into a folding chair. With a new high record, he laid back down. He gave out some hugs for helping, which all the nurses were so appreciative of.

He immediately wanted his blanket. He gets very cold because when Janice is done cleaning his blood, she returns it into his body colder than when it left. I wrapped the heated blanket around him and he snuggled right in. He napped pretty hard for about 3 hours.

I woke him up because his blood pressure went low. It popped back in the normal range.  Since he was up, we did some PT. Arms, legs, neck, shoulders hands.  Then his nurse asked him if he was up for the breathing challenge on even less support than yesterday.

Ethan’s nurse got a cup of ice water and a wand with a tiny oral sponge on it. She was dipping the sponge into the ice water and putting it in his mouth. Ethan thought this was awesome.  He kept asking for more “smoothie”. It took me forever to figure out what he was mouthing to me. When I guess what he is saying I get so happy. It’s like a I cracked the code to an important bank safe or something. I give a hearty “YES!” and then feel very accomplished....usually only for a few moments.

Ethan did the breathing challenge successfully for an hour. He was getting very tired towards the end. This will help him once they extubate him which will be likely by the end of next week or early the following week as long as he behaves.

Ethan has been hugging all the workers, doctors and anyone who comes in his room practically.  He just normally isn’t much of a hugger so i am living it up. He also likes to have the hug long enough to pat the person on the back or to rub their back. 

They started Ethan back on antibiotics because his respiratory cultures were growing again. I would like to say I am shocked but I saw this coming from a mile away. 

Now Ethan has had his bath and is all tucked into bed. I warmed his fabulous blanket. He has his lavender oil sprinkled around the bed.  I am pretty sure he would roll his eyes at me if he could. As long as he knows it was done with love.