Wednesday 09/23/09

Last night Mike did well. He was awake most of the night and finally went to sleep at around 4am. His labs were stable and he is not on any antibiotics. I was trying to wrap my head around the eyelid drooping thing. Karen explained that there is so much swelling around the eyes that sometimes it looks like they are drooping. There are eyelids there. Mike can open and, if he works at it, close them but there is so much swelling that the lower lids are sort of droopy. Sometimes they put lubricant in his eyes but one is an ointment and he can't see because it puts a greasy haze over his eyes.

George was the day nurse and said that Mike was up in a cardiac chair most of the day. He also stood up for about a minute and was able to shift his weight back and forth. He did that a couple of times. They had changed the trach from an 8 to a 6 and found that there was a lot of laryngioedema (swelling of the voice box) and he couldn't speak so well. They put in a trach that allows the air to move back and forth. George said he had a pretty good day.

Bette went with Paul (cousin) to have supper and will call me later.

More later,
and so we go
JaCee