Yesterday afternoon Winona called me to say "Lydia is back!" Lydia had signed "book" and "want" and then turned pages in a book (one of her favorite activities), and generally had played with Winona all afternoon. I came over and of course Lydia ignored me and just sat there. I'm not skeptical any longer, but I'm jealous that I missed it.
This morning I was with Lydia for almost 2 hours and she was sitting up most of the time, mostly ignoring Dad, ignoring books (one of her two favorite activities before hospitalization), and trying somewhat successfully to get her straight-arm soft casts off (they prevent her from pulling on tubes that shouldn't be pulled on). She looked excited when I turned on a Signing Time video (her other favorite activity). So, she's not back yet, but she's making progress.
Lydia is off her diuretic, she is off the Versed (an i.v. Valium-like sedative), and her ventilator is down to 40% FiO2 and a PEEP of 5. Speech therapy will assess her today to see if she can safely eat or drink. Constipation has still been an issue but is improving. Her only remaining i.v. sedative is Dilaudid, down to about 2/3 of last week's dose. She is still getting morphine and lorazepam by tube (she can drink those when the feeding tube is out). We should see by this evening how much difference this morning's decrement in her Dilaudid dose has made.
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