Wednesday, June 30, 2010 5:59 PM, MDT

Yesterday Bill had some seizure activity and they gave him a sedative and antiseizure meds. They seemed to do the job. His ct scan came back with no changes.(that was good news)
 The Dr says that this type of thing is not uncommon.
They are going to put a feeding tube in his stomach tomorrow and maybe a tracheotomy. We want the tubes out of his mouth. There is such high risk for infection the longer they are in his mouth, plus he will be much more comfortable.

He is still getting dyalisis often.
His lungs are clear and he is breathing on his own, the trache is only so they have access to suction if necessary.
He is making his own blood, bone marrow seems to be working.
His heart is in good shape as well.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010 9:58 PM, MDT

Bill will be having a tracheotomy and a feeding tube put in tomorrow. The trache will help him be more comfortable and make it easier to breath. It has been known to get patients off the ventilator more quickly. I think he will get stronger more quickly as well. We need prayers for all the procedures he is having done tomorrow, the risk factors are minimal.
The night nurse that helped Bill the first night is back and he brought the girls a couple of gift bags with lotions and stuff in them, I tell ya the people of Benefis Hospital have gone above and beyond for us.

Thursday, July 1, 2010 7:25 PM, MDT

What a day! first dialysis then a feeding tube put in by a Dr. that was born in Fort Collins, his dad went to Colorado A&M University. That went very well. Later, he had his tracheotomy and that went as planned as well. They did have to shave his beard. I managed to save the mustache. He does look different without all the tubes coming out of his mouth and of course, no beard. He did get some blood today, everything else is the same. We are planning on bugging him tomorrow and get him awake and back on track to getting him home.

The girls and I walked to Target and Sonic. There's a lot of stuff close by that we can walk to, so we are going to be in good shape by the time this is all over

The nurse was getting Bill ready to have the trachea put in, as I was talking to her she said something about shaving him. I said oh don't shave the mustache, if I had not said anything or had not been there they would have shaved his mustache that he had had since he was 18 years old. It was hard enough for us to see him without the beard it would have been very hard to see him without the mustache.

I was ok with the trachea because I knew that the tubes in his mouth were not good. Bill wasn't awake enough to just remove the breathing tubes. The trachea allows the respiratory staff to be able to suction out any mucus that Bill wouldn't be able to cough up. The respiratory staff quickly became some of our favorite people. They are so important in saving peoples lives. There was one time when Bill was having a hard time and the therapist was able to get a huge chunk of old gunk out of his lungs. With the blessing of one of the respiratory therapist we lovingly called them "snot suckers".

Bill kept getting better everyday and I was feeling pretty confident that he was going to be ok and recover. My knowledge of hospitals and ICU was mostly from movies and tv. Well I soon learned that those programs are not very acurate in depicting real life.

I had to try and be lots of things at once. First I had to be strong for Bill. I also had to be a mom to two very scared teenage girls. I also was the main person comunitcating to family and friends. Some people didn't realy understand some of the things that I was telling them. Then I had to explain it. At times I just didn't have the energy to do that.

I did have some support, Bill's brother was there for 10 days at the beginning and his sister was there two for part of the time. Some friends from Fort Collins came up for a day and brought me some cash, that was donated from Bill's coworkers. But I was still the one that had to do everything. I was scared and worried all the time. I was exhuasted every night and had a hard time eating, but I was positive that he would be ok