Still Getting Better

Hello. Brody has continued to improve very slowly. He made progress on the ventilator settings but is expected to be on life support for a few more days. The pulmonologist expected he would be off the vent by Wednesday and, like when he was in the NICU, will go through a period of withdrawal from the sedation medications. He will likely be in ICU for a couple of days after the tube comes out. As far as getting out of the hospital, we don't know. The doctor said we can expect it to be a month before he is up and running around like his normal self. Our Brody is such a wiggle butt, though, that we don't think it is going to be that long. He is already periodically waking up and looking around. They are going to start using as little medicine as possible in an attempt to make it less of a withdrawal when the tube comes out. That means they are allowing him to wiggle around, but will give him extra sedation if he tries to wiggle his tube out. He lifts up his head and tries to turn it and that is a no-no when you have a tube down your throat. The doctors have settled on a cause. They think he aspirated when he vomited, causing the pneumonia. And whatever infection was there was now in his lungs due to the aspiration and that is what caused it to get to the level that it did. His lung xrays still look the same, two main spots of infection, one on each side. They are a bit baffled by the fact thatwhen they consider the amount of support Brody is requiring and did require throughout this, they expect to see a horrible lung xray. In his case, the lungs look relatively good. That is why they always