Monday, December 3, 2007

8:30 pm
Wow, today was heart breaking! It was good and bad.
Good news: David was sleepy this morning. I tried at 9 am to wake him up with shaving, wet cloths, getting him dressed, and more! He was a zombie. Bruce, the Speech Therapist was coming at 9:30 to assess his swallowing. I really wanted him awake. When David was still sleepy at 10 am, the Respiratory Therapist came in and checked his airway out. He decided again not to cap the trachea as David wasn't getting enough air flow. He tried to take more air out of the cuff inside the trachea, but decided to just change it to a smaller one in the afternoon. David still could talk, somewhat and was awake after all. Bruce, Speech Therapist, came back at 11 and did his preliminary assessment for the swallowing test. He passed without much problem. Tomorrow they will do another swallow test where they watch him swallow some applesauce. They will make sure it goes down into the stomache instead of the lungs. If so.... they will start supplementing his feeding tube "food" with real "stuff".
Bad news: David is acting unlike himself. He punched a male nurse in the face, then kicked him in the balls. He pulled another nurse's hair, and tried to grab her glasses. This was all right after the Respiratory Therapist came back to check his new trachea. I was in the room with him and a LVN, while he was trying to finish attatching the trachea collar. The dr. came in an asked how it was going. He observed for awhile and asked if I had any questions. I said "YES!" A new nurse came in at sometime, and tried to help by having David take deep breathes. That seemed to help. After it was attatched, the dr said everyone stand back, remember to only have one person talking at a time, and stay calm. We stood back for a minute and let him calm down. It helped, but....... then he did a couple more things that were inappropriate. The dr. thanked the nurses and expressed what a hard job they have. No kidding! I left with the dr. and asked what was going on with this aggressive behavior that my sweet son was showing. He assured me this is normal to go through. No one takes it personnally and it is expected as TBI patients are coming out of the coma. He asked if I could to meet with him, the Neuropsychologist, and a couple more important people tomorrow at 1 pm to discuss David. "Of course!".... I walked with David as he wheeled around the halls after the chaos calmed down. He grabbed another nurse in the hallway and tried to take her badge. He went to the nurses' desk and demanded a piece of paper, snapping his fingers. He wrote a note telling them that someone was trying to kill him! As I was trying to tell him that he was safe, he punched me in the cheek. Luckily it was soft, and we had words about he can't hit people. We played football for awhile and finally he asked to go back to his room. Mitchell came by to say hi, 2 hours after he was off, and helped transfer him back to bed. I tell you these guys are so dedicated! And, they put up with a lot of crap.
So, continue to pray, pray, pray, and then pray somemore! David is obviously aggitated, and will be more when he finds out I've told everyone! Pray for his 20 different medications that he is on! I am going to look them up and discuss with the dr. what could be causing this reaction from the meds that we can eliminate. One of the nurses told me that this was the easy part, that it will get much worse!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pray, pray, pray!!!!!!!!!!!!This is insane! Thanks! and Goodnight!

PS I am hearing about many great friends who want to come visit. I know David would love to see you, but I'm not sure if he should be stimulated anymore with people coming up to visit right now. This is an ugly time he is going through and I think he would be embarrassed. Plus, he is aggitated by stimuli and with all the therapies, doctor appointments, nursing staff that is busy with him, etc., it is overwhelming for him. The staff has mentioned this to us, and I keep ignoring them because I love the visits. But, I do see that too many people (just on staff), is too much for him right now. It is a long way to come to just visit for a short time. So, I'm asking you to put those visiting plans off for the moment. I know it is almost his 21st birthday, but he needs to get lots of rest to heal too. What do you think? I hope you understand! It truly is killing me not to have visitors for awhile too. Love, Patty