Saturday, Day 27

As you can tell...it gets harder and harder to update the Blog. Yikes.

Dad was running a fever early today, and his White Cell count was up to 18, which meant he was fighting an infection. The doctors ran some tests, and they decided to replace his catheter. The fever reduced by mid afternoon, and we'll see what the tests find out (but it could take 72 hours). Unfortunately, this little setback may make the transition to Kindred longer, because Kindred wants his cell count down near normal for at least 72 hours prior to accepting him. Other than that, Dad's had a pretty decent day except for lack of sleep. Hopefully Mom will bring the CD player to him on Sunday (we've been reluctant to bring it, as we've thought we'd move hospital all week).

This evening at 8pm, they brought Dad a plate FULL of food. Of course, he won't be able to eat but a tiny portion. It was all "thick" stuff like mashed potatoes, pureed chicken, pudding, and even Iced Tea that was the thickness of honey. Supposedly he can swallow this stuff without leakage. We didn't stay for the feeding part, but you should have seen the gleam in his eyes! :-D It would be his first meal. My guess is he'll only get to drink the tea or juice, and eat the pudding. Can't imagine them letting him eat mashed potatoes and gravy.

Lastly, the nurse said that he has been 100% oxygenated for over a week on the 28% oxygen, so they've asked the Pulmonary doctor to give permission to start weaning him off of the tracheotomy (going smaller trachs for a few days each until they can remove it completely). This should help his swallowing, etc. too.