She's pretty much the same. When she's awake she thrashes and bounces her legs around a lot, and moves her arms, to the point where they've had to put light restraints on her to keep her from
hurting herself or pulling on the breathing tube. She can extend her feet at the ankles with surprising strength, and seems to have pretty fair strength in her arms, but still lacks coordination and fine motor control. The physical therapist is starting to work with her to get her out of bed, stand up, etc.They removed the breathing tube yesterday, but there was sufficient swelling in her airway to make it difficult for her to breathe. She also had difficulty expelling secretions. They tried some medication to bring down the swelling, but she didn't respond well, so they put the tube back in, and are giving her steroids to try to reduce the swelling. She actually had the tube out for about 1.5 hours and had good O2 saturation, but they deemed it too risky to leave it out given her breathing difficulty. I expect they'll try again Sunday or Monday. With the tube in, she's able to breathe for long periods on her own, without respirator assist.
No report yet on the neurological tests they've done.
It appears that she's in sort of a "half awake" state where she seems to be aware of some things going on around her and can respond to simple commands, but is not fully awake. I expect there's some awfully weird stuff bouncing around in her head right now.
It was 2 weeks ago tonight that this whole thing started. She's made tremendous progress, but still has a ways to go. But as we've been told so often, this whole process takes time. We continue to wait day by day for improvement.
Thanks again for your continued support.
John
Click on the headline to see an earlier report on Carol's situation. The Kracks are from Minnesota, where Carol is a retired teacher's aide.
No comments:
Post a Comment