24 hour mark

I have a lot to update today, so I'll do my best to keep it all straight.

David's daily chest X-ray shows a little area of collapse in a lower corner. They are trying some simple methods to get it working again.

Today at noon marked 24 hours in the coma, so tomorrow at noon is the 48 hour mark, and that's roughly where they are aiming. That means I'm expecting them to start bringing him out of the coma tomorrow. Then we'll be watching for seizure activity on the EEG.

of course it's not as simple as flipping a switch, and a really wonderful nurse sat down and walked me through the process as it typically happens. They will slowly back off on the coma med, and the drs will decide how fast or slow this process is. She said to expect him to be pretty groggy for a couple of days. It wil take a while to recover, plus they have started him on new daily meds, and they could make him sleepy, too, as he gets used to them.

Through these recovers days, he will still be intubated with the breathing machine (ventilator or vent) doing his breathing. Once they think he's recovered from the coma, they will start weaning him off the vent, but this is a slow process and depends entirely on how eager he is to take over his own breathing again.

So my guess is that we'll be in for 6 or 7 more days, but that's just a guess.

I've had a lot of people offer help, and I'm so thankful to each of you. We're still figuring out ow best to handle this all, and once we have a plan, we may start calling you. Our church is bringing us meals. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and offers to help. I don't expect much to happen today (I hope). But I'll update if anything changes.