The Latest News

Joe continues to be a stubborn SOB. With standard ventilation his blood oxygen levels and his chest x-ray continues to improve. The doctor has reduced his input O2 concentration a bit to roughly 50% and removed him from most the paralyitic but he still remains under full sedation and she has increased his pain killer flow to minimize any pain he might be experiencing. They continue the introvenous nutrients as before. He continues to run a fever at ~101 degrees.

The doctor wanted to stress that they continue to search for the underlying cause of his condition. There have been consultations with multiple infectious disease doctors on his case. To date, everything has been negative though they continue to search. I put a request to have them check for lyme (to investigate his underlying joint issue, not the pneumonia), Bubonic and pneumonic plague (as per the request of a family member). One error from a previous report is that they are still waiting for hanta virus results since it has to go to a national lab to get results.

Plans moving forward are that she will continue to wean him off the ventilator with a goal of getting him completely off in 3-5 days. This is driven by both his progress and medical necessity since we've refused to allow a trachometry and he can only be ventilated for two to three weeks via the tube through his mouth. Assuming all goes well, she is also planning to allow him to regain consciousness in 36 to 48 hours. When I prompted that we will want to increase his visitation at that point, she stressed that she will only allow that if the visitation doesn't increase his stress level.

I attempted to pin her down on two key points - Joe's recovery and long-term prognosis including any issues with brain damage from oxygen deprivation. Regarding recovery time, she would not offer any new insight, stating that it will be up to a pulmonary therapist to evaluate the recovery regiment once Joe is conscious and off the ventilator. Thus we can expect roughly a week before we have any visibility. For his long term prognosis, she still offered the vague responses of "should" and "we expect" full recovery. Regarding the specific issue of the possibility of brain damage, she stated that the only time his blood oxygen concentration dropped to levels that put his brain at risk was Tuesday afternoon/evening when they opted to ventilate him. She did not believe that he was in this dangerous state long enough for permanent damage.

She offered to get me another update Thursday, or as time permits.

-John