Friday, February 6, 2009

Today Christy had a good day.  She was calm and tracking lots.  Donald said that Christy had been calm pretty much all day.  Christy was tracking when the Physical Therapist called her name & he was impressed.  Donald's been reading her the bible-- mostly Psalms.  Kainalu was talking to Chris today, and I'm sure she loved hearing him there.  Keli'i was impressed at the amount of tracking Christy was doing tonight. He described it as "almost normal." He's going to spend the night at the hospital with her tonight.  So our Christy is coming around.  And we have a plan.

Edna, the case manager, came today to talk to Donald today.  She told him that the paperwork was submitted to Craig and that they were going to get back to us when the RN was going to fly down.  Craig is going to send a RN to evaluate Christy to decide if she is a patient that Craig can help. We know Craig is right for Christy.  

Christy still has the casts on her legs to hold her feet in the right position.  I learned that the casts were acting as a skin protector as well.  The friction Christy was creating from kicking  the bed rail pad and kicking her other foot caused abrasions on her feet.  With the casts on, Christy will kick the side rails and the other casted foot, but her skin will not suffer.

Christy can't talk or make noise with the trach in.  The trach is below the vocal cords, so her breath goes out of the trach and doesn't pass through the vocal cords.  She has to push air past the vocal cords to create sound.  As Christy becomes more consious, the will start to decide if they should plug the trach and see if Christy breathes ok without it.  The part that we have to be very careful of is the mucus in her lungs.  Right now, they are suctioning her every couple hours.  They feel that this is too frequent to close the trach.  The trach gives easy access in to the lungs to suction out any mucus.  Once the secretions get under control and Christy is more conscious, we can give her the opportunity to speak or make sounds. The picture at the right shows a fenestrated trach. That means it has a hole in it, just like there is in the picture.  That means if you put your finger over the trach hole, the air you exhale can go up into the airway and over the vocal cords and there can be sound or speech!  I don't think Christy has tried to talk but she may have made sounds already if there was no trach there, we don't know.  As she becomes more conscious, it will become obvious to us when we are able to progress, and possibly seal off the stoma (hole in her windpipe).  

It's so incredibly exciting to see Christy respond more with her eyes and for her to be calm.  Her hands are relaxed and not clenched in fists. She really is looking more and more like herself!  All the prayer and love being sent her way, is what has allowed her to defy the odds.  The power of love and prayer has brought her, every day, little by little to where we are right now.  Thank you.  Thank God. Please let every person who is praying for Christy know that she is making progress because of them.  Thank you from the bottom of our hearts...