Tuesday, July 13, 2010 5:49 PM, MDT

It was a busy day for Bill today. He started off with fixing his stomach tube. He is back on his liquid nutrition. He was very lightly sedated, so was very sleepy for most of the day, which is OK because he had dialysis for 4 hours. You can't really do anything during that. There is a glimmer of hope after the preliminary hearing test.

Bill is doing very well with the PMV (which allows him to talk). They were ready to do a swallow test but because of dialysis, that will happen tomorrow.

He was fitted for a wheelchair today. That will come in tomorrow morning. This wheelchair will be suited for his needs and will be comfortable for him. However, Bill will not want to use it for very long. He wants to walk! And he will, once he gets into rehab with intensive physical therapy.

We discovered today that he is allergic to Heparin, a blood thinner. Bill can't ever have it again for the rest of his life.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010 4:53 PM, MDT

We now know what the Cardiovascular Unit looks like. Later last night, Bill's heart went into A-Fib, which basically means that his heart was off rhythm. So the decision was made to move him into the CVU because they can monitor it better and administer the medication he needed. We were very concerned until we talked to Dr. Sonna who put our minds at ease. He told us that this was not a big deal and not to worry. After visiting with Bill for a while and went to sleep with no major worries. Today, his heart is back in normal rhythm.

We like the CVU rooms better. Unfortunately, we will be moving back to the PCU soon, probably tomorrow.

Today, he had therapy. The PT had him standing up with lots of help and only for a very short time. It is still good news.

He passed his first swallowing test! They dyed a few ice cubes blue and checked to see if any of the blue dye went to his airway. Happily, it didn't! They will test him again tomorrow. They should slowly start introducing food in a few days.

Apparently, there are no audiologists at the hospital, so Dr. Garwin is doing his best to get someone over here to work with Bill and his ears. We hope to have some answers soon.

Right now, Bill doesn't have any IVs in him, however he will have to have medicines administered via IV. This is quite good.

Thursday, July 15, 2010 7:53 PM, MDT

Bill is probably going to stay in the CVU because of bed availability. We are happy because we like the room better. Dialysis was early this morning and went well. After dialysis PT came and worked him out and we put him in a wheelchair. He was in it for over 2 hours. The OT came and Bill brushed his teeth and combed his mustache. He saw himself for the first time, he said he looked pathetic. We said that we thought he looked great. We also wheeled him out to the waiting room so he could have a change of scenery. We sat out there for about 30min.
The trachea he has was also changed to a smaller one, that is one more step to getting the trachea removed.
We had some really promising news about the kidneys, there is some urine production. We are very excited about this news. We will know more tomorrow.
 When we told him that we were going to get lunch. We were teasing him about his food, he is on a liquid diet directly into his stomach. He laughed about what he has to consume.
It might get up to 90 tomorrow. Then it will cool off to the 80's again.

Bill had trouble with vomiting and keeping the tube feeding down. The doctors had to adjust the tube numerous times. It was one of the frustrating things that we had to deal with.

Found out that his allergy to heparin would cause his blood to clot and he could die if it was given to him again. That was not good news, with dialysis heparin is used frequently. It makes the process much easier, usually heparin thins the blood. One time a nurse was flushing his iv line and I thought that I heard her say she was going to use heparin. I didn't think that could happen. I questioned her and sure enough she did use the heparin. Luckily she was able to pull it back and it was such a small amount no harm was done.

The night that Bill's heart went into a-fib was a scary one. When the heart gets out of rhythm it can cause a heart attack. When Bill's heart went out of rhythm the staff on the PCU unit could not get it back into rhythm so they wanted to take him across the hall to the cardiac unit. They told us to go wait in the waiting room. We waited and waited and waited for someone to come and get us. I was thinking that something must have gone wrong.

 I was scared to go looking for him in the cardiac unit because I didn't know what they would tell me. Finally, after about hour and half Kayla and I got up the nerve to go find him. The three of us walked into the CVU and saw the doctor that had been Bill's doctor in the ICU. He was surprised to see us and asked what was going on. When we told him he quickly put our minds at ease and reassured us that everything would be ok. We went into Bill's new room and said good night to him and went "home" to bed.

I was very upset by all this and had a hard time calming my self.

His heart was back in rhythm by morning. The doctor was frustrated at the lack of help for Bill's hearing loss so he got busy trying to get us some help.

The doctors were so good to us in Montana. When we told the doctor that we liked the room in the CVU better, he said he wouldn't change the order for a few days. 

It is amazing how we would get excited over things like a smaller trachea. Your world changes dramatically when something like this happens. My world was pretty small, it consisted of the hospital and my two girls. My social life was nurses and doctors.

Bill's mother and brother came to visit as well as his aunt and uncle and cousin.They were greeted with mixed emotions as I felt like I had to entertain them. All I really wanted to do was take care of my family.

 Bill had other visitors as well. A friend from work stopped in on his motorcycle trip to Montana. A hockey friend who was on his way to Canada, stopped by. My good friends the Zynda's stopped in on their way home from a vacation. Also Harriet's son stopped to say hello while visiting his mother. It was good to see some familiar faces. I appreciated the trouble that these people went through to show us they cared.