Caution: Random post ahead:

I am just now updating because we had a very long afternoon and evening yesterday. One of the very first things you learn in nursing school is to not give families and patients concrete timelines because you are just setting yourself up when things do not go EXACTLY as planned. And of course even I was thinking with my emotional side and not my logical side. When Cliff was moved to the ICU yesterday at 1pm we were told that he should be off the ventilator by 3pm and up in a chair by 6pm. Well, this did NOT happen. They did attempt to wake him around 3pm but he would not breathe on his own....so they would stimulate him to try to get him more awake, when he would get pretty awake he would get agitated and start fighting the vent so they would have to sedate him, causing him to not initiate breathing on his own. We repeated this process for over 3 hours. It was definitely an emotional process. The nursing staff finally decided to not sedate him when he got agitated and try to
"wait it out" they also did not want us to touch or talk to him because they wanted to be able to accurately assess if he was breathing enough on his own to turn down the vent.

As a nurse I am usually immune to medical situations that cause others freak out. But it was very difficult to see Cliff so helpless and agitated because he "thought" he could not breathe and not be able to give him any type of comfort.

Paul and I were both beyond exhausted so when they kicked us all out of ICU at 6:30 we headed home. They told us they would probably only do one or two more attempts to wean him off tonight and if they continued to be unsuccessful would wait until the morning. Sandra and Tony (Paul's brother)went back for the 8:30-10pm visiting and then were both headed home to get some much needed rest. Maybe all Cliff needed was a couple of uninterrupted hours sleep because we they resumed their attempts they were able to get him off the ventilator the first try!!!! It did not take him long to get back to his crazy self. During the night they did get him up in a chair and we when arrived this morning he was griping because the brought him cream of wheat for breakfast.

We are now in a regular hospital room on the cardiac floor. They have removed all his medical paraphernalia with the exception of telemetry (heart monitor) and IV access. They are feeding him a regular diet and he is doing awesome!!!! He looks like a totally different person than yesterday.

Thank you so much for all the phone calls, prayers, well wishes, and thoughts. We are not supposed to use our cell phones on this unit but we do have free wi fi access so that is how I am able communicate.

Cliff should be up walking this afternoon an we are right on track to go home Monday.

I can say one thing for hospital life. I have plenty of time to catch up on blogs both posting and commenting.

Hope everyone is have a great week!!