Yesterday and today, Ted’s pressure has been up and down and once low, it beeps until someone comes and pauses the alarm and checks to see if they need to decrease the sedation meds a bit – too far under and he gets low. Then sometimes after said adjustment, he must wake up in there a bit and his pressure jumps to the point that he is setting off the upper limits of where the alarm kicks off. It feels like the beeping has been never ending these past few days. It’s not like they are making huge adjustments either. He is just sensitive. I always called him the princess and the pea as the slightest wrinkle in his sheet and he couldn’t sleep whereas I can have a rock under me and don’t notice it until there is a bruise present.

I came in this morning and he was back to 70% Oxygen on the Ventilator, but the day nurse made some adjustments and before long, they had him back to 60%. The respiratory therapist turned his breath rate down from 34 to 32 as we need to bring that down over time as well.

On rounds, the Dr. said that she would come back to speak to me later and get my sign off on getting the tracheotomy done.

I understood the procedure from her earlier explanation, but I wanted to ask if they would recommend it if it was a relative of theirs.

When I was coming back to the room from lunch, I ran into today’s respiratory therapist and the one from last week as well. They had the hall blocked off for a few moments, so we were all chatting and last week’s RT asked how Ted was doing. I mentioned the probable Tracheotomy and both RT’s chimed in that they would wholly recommend it. I then was walking to the room and ran into one of my nurses from last week and mentioned it to her as well and she was excited to hear it and gave her full backing as well. Doctors can be very clinical, so it was good to get the feedback from the people who had spent the most time with us in his care. My other nurse from last week was also working and popped into the room for a quick hello and to check on how he was doing and added her approval too.

So, when the Doctor actually came in, I did feel better about signing the required paperwork. The surgeon also stopped by and was very reassuring and confident in the process. He said his day was booked for tomorrow, but he would fit it in on Friday.

My nurse today is very astute and wonderful and as it turns out, is practically my neighbor. I mean, I could literally go home and walk to her house in under 15 or 20 minutes. I am starting to feel like I know more and more of the caring team of workers and so coming in feels more familiar and welcoming. Now if we could get Ted better and all the beeping to stop, life would be grand.

Hoping for a good night.

Love Sally